Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 20 - Evidence - Meeting of March 9, 2007 - Morning meeting
STEINBACH, MANITOBA, Friday, March 9, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 9:17 a.m. to examine and report on rural poverty in Canada.
Senator Joyce Fairbairn (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good morning colleagues, and good morning to all of you. We are very honoured to have the Mayor of Steinbach here this morning.
Chris Goertzen, Mayor of Steinbach: Thank you. I want to express my sincere appreciation for you all coming here to Steinbach and to our region today. I recognize a few faces around the table, and some from not very far away.
We have a very successful area and this is an important topic for us. We want to make sure that it is addressed and we appreciate you listening to the people who come to speak to you today.
[Translation]
Welcome to Steinbach. We are glad you chose to hear witnesses in our municipality.
[English]
I wish you a good day, and thank you for coming here.
The Chairman: The committee is very pleased to be in Steinbach. As a number of our witnesses have pointed out, this community is a clear example of a successful rural community. This success is due I am sure, and indeed I know from past visits here, in no small part to the vibrant German Mennonite community within Steinbach, which is the heart and soul of this area. It certainly gives the community a vigour that other parts of Canada can also understand, as I can, coming from southwestern Alberta where there is a very strong Mennonite community near my hometown of Lethbridge.
We are here today to learn from your success and to listen to the concerns, causes and consequences of being poor in rural Manitoba communities. We also want to listen to those who either live in poverty or help people find a way out of poverty.
Before we begin, I will tell you who is around this table. We welcome our colleagues, Senator Chaput and Senator Zimmer, who have come to join us today; they are very strong Manitoba Senators. Senator Mercer comes from Nova Scotia. Senator Gustafson, who is the Deputy Chair of this committee and a very long-serving member of Parliament in both Houses, the House of Commons first and then the Senate, is from Saskatchewan. I hardly need to introduce the person sitting beside Senator Gustafson. He is from Northern Ontario up around Timmins. His name is Frank Mahovlich, and I know that you all have heard of him before becoming a Senator.
We are here as a committee from the Senate of Canada, which has been on a road of learning in the last few weeks. We are studying rural poverty in this country in its various forms. We started in the Atlantic provinces a couple of weeks ago. We thought we would never get out through the blizzards but here we are. This past week, we began in Prince George, in British Columbia. That was up in the area where the pine beetle has been eating away at all their trees. We are a committee on forestry as well. Then we came into my Province of Alberta and the towns surrounding that southwestern corner. We spent yesterday in Humboldt and here we are in Steinbach.
On our first panel is Robert Annis, the Director of the Rural Development Institute at Brandon University. The institute is considered a centre for excellence in rural development and research. With him as well is Dolores Beaumont and we welcome you both and the floor is yours.
Robert Annis, Director, Rural Development Institute, Brandon University: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here. I thank you also for coming to Manitoba. I think it is important for Senators to come to smaller communities across the country. We really appreciate your time and effort to visit with people where they can make their presentations closer to their homes.
I am the director, as mentioned, of the Rural Development Institute, and I have taken the liberty of giving you a copy of our annual report from last year. You will find many of the projects and some of the activities I mention this morning in that report. Also, it is a way to get further detail on virtually any of the projects that we undertake. We put the details of our projects on our web page, so if you want to follow-up on some of my statements you may do so on our web page.
I would also like to draw attention to two people who have travelled with me. While I am the spokesperson, the director of the institute, we also have a masters program in Rural Development at Brandon University. Alison Moss is just about to graduate from our masters program and is an intern in the institute. Ryan Gibson is a graduate of our masters program in rural development and is currently a research affiliate in our institute.
We are called the Rural Development Institute. I know your mandate is rural poverty and today I will speak in terms of northern as well as rural. In this province, we are very lopsided in terms of population distribution. Two- thirds of the population is in or near Winnipeg, with one-third dispersed over a very large geography. I am talking today about the smaller communities, rural communities, many of which are agriculturally based or founded, but also northern communities where agriculture perhaps has at some times been a consequence but is for the most part not the driving economic force.
We have not done background work directly on the issue of rural poverty nor do we provide service to people who are in poverty. However, many of the projects we have undertaken, working with community leaders, organizations and smaller communities across this province, Western Canada, and indeed in the North in Nunavut and in the Yukon, speak to poverty issues.
I have read your interim report. I am not here to argue with the contents of the report, but maybe to give some additional commentary from a Manitoba perspective on some of the projects with which we have been engaged. I am here to argue that our fundamental thrust is that poverty is a severe issue that needs our attention. I will point out that solutions vary enormously.
I am not here to argue on your comments on definitions, but to say sensitivity to the local setting is fundamentally important in terms of how we look for solutions, and also who might be looking for solutions.
We are advocates for what we call a community economic development approach, a CED approach, where local organizations and local community members are intricately engaged in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their communities. They propose their own solutions. It puts the role of government in a bit of a different way, not from top down solutions, but rather in a role of facilitating local capacity development and supporting projects and activities that come from local folk.
Approximately 13 per cent of our population is Aboriginal and growing. You cannot deal with poverty in this province without addressing the issues and needs of Aboriginal people. How to address poverty in Aboriginal communities cuts across federal and provincial jurisdictions. As an example, we have done some work in helping to establish a group called Bayline Regional Round Table. I know you are going to hear from one of the presenters later today.
War Lake is a First Nations community; it is along the train line between The Pas and Churchill. Ilford is a community of about 400 people. War Lake is First Nations, Ilford is not formally, but Aboriginal people live in Ilford that are not of the War Lake band. There are also Métis and non-Aboriginal people. Literally, there is an invisible line on the road in the community. One house on the side of this invisible line is in War Lake, the other beside it is in Ilford, yet, when service providers go into that community, depending which house they walk into, they can offer one service to one person and cannot offer the same service to the person next door because of these different jurisdictional issues. This small community needs the necessary mechanisms to work through these differences. I think you are going to hear some interesting testimony from people from the Bayline Regional Round Table.
Steinbach is a thriving Manitoba community. The needs here are perhaps for affordable housing, immigration might be an issue, whereas the Bayline community is looking to issues such as food security. That community asks how to get freezers into their community? They ask how we will get fresh food to our community when it needs to come from Thompson and it is a train trip away. You are going to hear about such concerns. We are here to find a CED approach where the solutions are found locally.
I would like to state four recommendations for your consideration. The first is creating local employment opportunities, including access to jobs and access to job training, retraining, and pre-employment supports, while recognizing the need to respect cultural and physical diversity. Diversity is huge and if it is not dealt with properly, the programs will not be as successful as they ought to be. We recommend a policy framework that enables the community to generate local solutions and programs to build capacity to implement programs.
To address poverty in rural and northern communities we must recognize barriers, such as inadequate housing, transportation, health, child care in particular, and transportation issues. To assist people to exit poverty means providing supports prior to their entrance into the labour market. We must provide a supportive environment through policy and programs that reduces the barriers for those most at risk and reflect gender and cultural issues peculiar to the individuals.
Thirdly, we recommend the community economic development or CED approach. CCEDNET, the Canadian CED Network, for example, is a national organization that promotes development and is a network organization for people of this persuasion. Community Futures Development Program is a strong federal program locally based that is also based on a CED approach.
Our fourth recommendation for action is ensuring that federal, provincial and municipal governments work collaboratively. We ask small rural communities to work collaboratively and we ask government departments to do the same. In this forum, for example, rural teams which are coming from the rural secretariat have also been very important in trying to reduce intergovernmental and cross-departmental barriers.
Substantive changes are needed. There must be cross-departmental, cross-jurisdictional cooperation. Rural and northern poverty is not solely the responsibility of any single level of government or department. All levels have a responsibility to address it. Different levels of government or departments may take the lead at different times regarding different issues, but ultimately must work collaboratively to foster change and alleviate poverty. We need strong rural policy, which is not identical to agricultural policy, which supports rural communities where between seven, eight or nine-tenths of the population in fact is not actually engaged in agriculture.
[Translation]
Dolorès Beaumont, Director, Pointe-des-Chênes School: Thank you, Mr. Goertzen. I am very moved that you welcomed me here today in French.
I would like to say a few words to Senator Mahovlich. I do not know whether your ears were burning this week. A few days ago, I was talking to students who were wearing the Montreal Canadians jersey at school and they mentioned their most famous players. I would like to tell you a little secret of mine: you have always been my favourite Montreal Canadian.
Madam Chairman, my name is Dolorès Beaumont, I am a humble native of the town of Sainte-Geneviève and I live in Sainte-Anne. I am extremely proud to be the director of Pointe-des-Chênes school, a pretty little francophone school that brings together francophone students from the rural communities of Sainte-Anne, Sainte-Geneviève, Richer and Dufresne. Our student population is 303 students. If you understand provincial funding, you know that those 303 students from kindergarten to Grade 12 are very important. Among them, we are proud to have 111 Métis. These communities were once rich in agriculture. These towns are now bedroom communities for the City of Winnipeg. Families live in their communities, but do not earn their living there.
The economic picture has changed a lot. Thirty, 20 and even 10 years ago, in Sainte-Anne, there were several businesses, grocery stores, grain elevators, a cinema, a division office, garages and various companies. Things look very different today. One of the only viable economic features of the town of Sainte-Anne is in the field of health, which requires health professionals, doctors, dentists and nurses, as well as many blue collar workers.
Our communities depend very little on agriculture now. They are turning to other means, foster homes. This new development has had a great impact on our English-language community schools. The vast majority of their population comes from foster and low-income families. Seventy per cent of the student population of English-language schools in our community of Sainte-Anne takes part in a program called "Breakfast for Learning.''
At Pointe-des-Chênes school, the picture is not yet so alarming. However, our families are increasingly breaking apart; we are talking about single-parent and low-income families.
Let me share this anecdote with you: at Christmas, one family could not afford gifts for their children. They came to see me in my office in tears. School staff raised funds and collected items, and thanks to the generous donations from the community, those children had a merry Chritsmas. After all, is Christmas not for children?
We have another family that can barely provide for their five children. We solicited staff members and their family, once again, to help them out.
Our students from grade five to eight had a winter camp in January, and the school had to provide over $800 so that all students could participate. Those funds are not included in our budgets, so we have to be creative. We feel that all young people deserve to have that kind of experience.
Our parents are not as economically self-sufficient as they once were. They cannot meet all their child's needs. They turn to the schools. We come to their rescue. We have willingly taken on this responsibility. We are proud of our role in the community and society. However, we cannot do it alone. We need our government. The viability of our rural communities is at risk. I beg of you to help us out. I am just a humble resident of a friendly little community that needs you. Our community's economy needs further development. We need subsidized childcare. We absolutely have to keep our young families in our communities in order to grow.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dolorès.
[English]
Senator Zimmer: I thank both of the witnesses for their presentations today. Ms. Beaumont, I am also a very strong diehard Montreal Canadiens fan and I appreciate your comments. I always try to forget that on the front of his sweater, Senator Mahovlich had a Montreal crest and on the back was a Toronto Maple Leafs crest where he first started. You picked the right team.
Education and poverty work hand in hand. To get beyond the poverty levels, it is extremely important to become educated. Mr. Annis, a university degree is important to get into those fields; however, it is extremely important to begin at a very early age to educate these children. Although you may be going to governments for funding and support, do you have programs that are interrelated whereby you work with each other's programs to ensure that we start at an early age rather than waiting until they come to university?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: Thank you for the question, Senator Zimmer. Pointe-des-Chênes school, like all schools in the Franco-Manitoban school division, has a partnership with the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface in a number of areas. One of these partnerships provides for the professional development of our Grade 9 natural sciences teachers. They meet three times a year and assess how they can help, with perhaps limited resources, in the purchase of equipment and space.
Geographically, the Franco-Manitoban school division runs from the north to the southeast to the west, covering some 4,500 students. Some buildings do not have science laboratories, so sometimes we have to be extremely creative. That is one initiative. We ask ourselves: how can we teach science in our schools, how can we do it with the means at our disposal?
Another initiative we are focusing on in our schools is the technical and professional option. We know that not all students are candidates for university. In Manitoba, we need electricians, plumbers and other trades. In the little Pointe-des-Chênes school, we have a program where our young people attend classes three days a week and then go out into the workplace, either as apprentices, if we can find qualified people to train them, or to find a field they would like to work in. We have nine of these programs in the Franco-Manitoban school division. We understand full well that you have to start in the first five years. That is why, in our division, we desperately want Pointe-des-Chênes school to have a centre for early childhood and the family. We have childcare during the day, a nursery school for five and under. We could also provide education and francization for three and four-year-old junior kindergarten. We could conduct activities with stay-at-home moms who want their child socialized. We have francophone resources available under a project called "mini playtime''. We agree with you that we have to start in our schools, from kindergarten to Grade 12.
[English]
Mr. Annis: I also would like to add to Madam Beaumont's statement, but also to draw attention to preschool programs, which are very important. It is not just for the children and giving them a head start but also for their families, usually moms, to allow them to enter the labour force. Also in farm families, it is also a safety issue. It is much better to have children in child care programs than in the farm field where all hands are so busy.
Many of the smaller schools are dealing with the issue of declining enrolments. One of the solutions around that is increasing use of technologies, broadband connectivity and the ability to link to distance teaching. Unfortunately, many schools in rural and northern settings are not adequately served with broadband. Broadband service should be available from coast to coast to coast.
The new railroad and the highway infrastructure should not be an impediment to rural and northern peoples. It serves in a way, and if it is not there, it becomes a barrier to thinking creatively about new solutions.
We have to have a solution to the lack of institutes of higher learning in isolated areas. Brandon University has a number of programs, for example, the PENT program that takes education services into northern and Aboriginal communities, and has proved enormously successful. PENT is the program for the education of native teacher. However, we have many people in this province who never get to the end of high school. What happens then 10 years later when they decide to return to school? How does someone in his or her mid-twenties get upgrading? This is a huge issue. We must pay attention to these people who did not have the opportunity to continue with their education. Our system is not geared to people out of sync with the traditional pattern of how to enter into formal educational systems. We must consider informal learning and non-formalized college or university programs; we need to be creative on that front, as it is a fundamental plank for equity. It is a fundamental plank to be able to work your way out of poverty.
Senator Zimmer: I thank you both for your very impressive answers. You touched on a key point and that is the traditional patterns of the past. When young people graduated from high school, the first thought was going to university. What happens when they do? Usually, the student goes to a large city to further his or her studies and often does not return. You are absolutely right. They do not build within the community.
I think what has happened in the last five or 10 years is that younger people, instead of going to university, are going to trade schools, which is extremely important because those schools reflect the businesses in the smaller communities.
Education falls under provincial jurisdiction. Have you made similar presentations to provincial governments to tie in the issue of working within trades and trade schools so that the students can return to their communities?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: In the Franco-Manitoban school division, I am just a director. So that would be up to my superiors. I can tell you that if you look at the headlines in Manitoba, the Franco-Manitoban school division has often begged the provincial government to give us more subsidies for education precisely so that the needs of our students can be met. We have taken a quite interesting initiative. We now have a partnership with two schools, technical and professional colleges in Winnipeg. We are very proud to say that the Franco-Manitoban school division now has a partnership with the Arts and Technology Centre and with the Winnipeg Technology Centre.
However, we may lose five young people to life in Winnipeg. How do we keep up these partnerships while ensuring that they come back to the communities, when we know that economically, it is very hard to establish oneself?
[English]
Mr. Annis: The other challenge, as in any rural issue, whether poverty, access to education and so on, is that things rural have not garnered great attention. Our masters program in rural development is the only one of its kind in Western Canada. I do not know why there are not four or five other such programs. Our research institute is unusual in that it is devoted to rural topics.
We are not rich in rural policy, research and networks. We need to focus on the conversion between research and policy and programming. I know you have heard testimony that we are not rich in rural policy, research, and in networks that foster that type of understanding. Often these issues are not brought to the attention of people who need to make decisions. The research is not available to them or they might find locating the research difficult.
Where does rural policy reside? It is a part of agriculture. It is a very good thing within Rural Secretariat, but I think a great more attention should and could be there.
In this province, MAFRI, the Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, deals with rural policy, but as an attachment to agricultural policy. I understand the need and the value for agricultural policy; it is often on the front page of our papers, but rural policy needs its limelight as well. I think it is only through rural policy and rural programming that many of these fundamental issues challenging small communities might soon be addressed and addressed based on good sound information, benchmarking progress, and looking for and sharing innovative programs. It is hard to find the answers or the data on which one would wish to make decisions.
Senator Zimmer: The economic development within the communities ties in and creates the job; there is an integral relationship. Steinbach is a very aggressive community with the automobile industry, and if jobs can be created that way, the young people will stay here.
The Chairman: Listening to your answers, I recall that Manitoba has had, over the years, one of the finest literacy programs in the country. Indeed, the first time I came to Steinbach, it was with your literacy people. I spent an incredible day with a number of people in this community, including the Mennonite mothers and their children. You leave a very strong impression of that issue as a foundation issue that everything else is built on. I thank you for that.
Senator Mercer: Each of you referred to child care. Madam Beaumont, you talked about the need for more child care spaces. The current government introduced a program of $100 per month per eligible child. That replaced a program that the previous government had negotiated with the Province of Manitoba to provide more child care spaces. Has that $100 a month had any effect?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: I can honestly tell you that the $100 often does not go to the child per se. The former childcare system, which would have had a lot more spaces, which we definitely wanted to be subsidized more heavily, which we wanted done in a more organized, more systematic fashion, was in my view much more advantageous for our various communities. I cannot say the $100 is worthless to families. However, I see examples; it is no way to move forward and really make lasting changes to childcare.
I wanted to mention that in collaboration with the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface, our French university, we have begun offering day care worker programs to our high school youth. We invite members of the community to come. Distance learning happens with a telephone bridge; four members of our community are taking classes every Tuesday. We have two of our students in high school. We know to what degree we have a shortage of day care workers. We believe this will at least be a proactive and not reactive initiative regarding all aspects of day care.
[English]
Senator Mercer: Mr. Annis, you raised a very important problem in small remote communities, particularly with large Aboriginal groups, where different services are provided. You also raised a problem for governments. How do governments manage in a community where there may only be one bureaucrat, and he or she may represent the federal government or the provincial government? You identified the problem that they need to be able to service everybody equally, or at least deliver programs that are not necessarily from their level of government.
Do we have any examples of that working in the remote part of Manitoba?
Mr. Annis: It is hard to find examples. I am hoping a few stories will be presented later about some solutions. I do not think a solution will be found in Ottawa or in Winnipeg. We must find flexible programs within the community to wrestle through these things, to tap into the various levels or departments of government to solve issues. People will be creative about how they go about doing that. There are some new forms of governance, particularly on a regional basis that are needed, how communities can collaborate across communities and where it is more informal, perhaps how it is organized, but I believe will lend to better service provision solutions.
One example, in Brandon, there is a poverty committee and one of the things they have been proud to do and have done well is to provide free bus passes to people on assistance. Many other communities are asking, "How did Brandon do that?'' It is a good solution for Brandon. Most of the communities I have spoken to do not have public transportation but people will find a solution. My point is that unless you are sensitive to the local issue, the specifics of the how to find a solution should come from the ground up.
Senator Chaput: I have one question for Mr. Annis, "une question'' for Madam Beaumont.
Mr. Annis, in your recommendations you talk about the three levels of government working together. You also say that at one point in time, it should be one of the governments taking the lead, depending on the issue or the program.
Could you give us an example of when the municipal government should take the lead, and then afterwards how the others could come in and help the municipal government?
I believe that if we have to look at issues regarding the rural areas, in many instances the municipal governments should take the lead. I would like to know if you agree, and if so, please provide examples.
Mr. Annis: I think increasingly the lead should come from the municipal level. The great challenge is do they have the resources? Can they raise the resources? Do they have the technical expertise and the capacity? Many of the rural issues need to have multi-community collaborations around solutions. It is difficult for a municipal councillor, a reeve, or mayor in one community to be working out an issue in another community. The process might include rural tourism, access to many services, water quality issues et cetera. In many cases, these issues might be better addressed on a regional level, but we do not have governance processes in place to resolve those issues.
A creative example is the Community Collaboration Program. I believe you were in Saskatchewan yesterday. There may have been a presentation on the WaterWolf Regional Round Table in the MidSask Outlook area. That is a very creative process supported by Community Futures Development Corporations. The Community Futures Programs are federally funded, and provincially funded through regional development; however, the municipal councillors and local leaders sit at the tables and they are leading the charge in a marvellous way. They are truly experimenting on regional governance and regional planning. I would hope that these are issues that the federal government could say, how do we create a more enabling environment for these innovative practices to take place?
The Chairman: That is precisely why we are here.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: Ms. Beaumont, we spoke of the "Breakfast for Learning'' program. I would like you to elaborate on that for us; how many schools and how many children does this involve, and where do you obtain the funding to help these children?
Ms. Beaumont: When I was invited to testify, I knew that you would be hearing from representatives of the English schools in the Ste. Anne, Richer and La Broquerie regions. Ms. Wilson will be here this afternoon. She will be able to enlighten you on the program.
When I called Sandra, my friend from high school, I asked her if she had any information to share with me on the subject of Breakfast for Learning. She was very excited to talk about this project.
From kindergarten through the Grade 12, 70 per cent of the students have breakfast at the school every morning. We make toast, we have milk, fruit and granola bars. This program is subsidized by a provincial initiative but whether we like it or not, they have had to go knocking on the doors of various businesses in the regions.
Recently, the community of Richer asked me if I could help them, because when I was at another school, we launched that kind of a project. We call on school committees. We knock on the doors of the boards of various businesses, and often, when we are out shopping in our grocery stores, as educators, we buy something and that is the way things work. You know that as educators, if we could, we would spend our entire paycheck on our students. But unfortunately, we also must eat.
[English]
Senator Mahovlich: You said there has been a change in the economy in the past 10 years in Ste. Anne, and your younger students are staying away and not coming back. The infrastructure that Ste. Anne has lost, in order for those people that have left to come back, will we have to replace the infrastructure before they return or do they have to return and then we get the infrastructure?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: You ask an interesting, intriguing question; if is a little like the chicken and the egg, is it not? I sincerely believe that both must happen in parallel. We must show our youth that there is an economically viable way to come back. At the same time, we must have a large enough population to enable us to have businesses, an economy, and in the end be able to spend our money at home. It is very easy to get into our vehicles and spend 35 minutes driving to Winnipeg where we can buy at a greatly reduced price. We must make it more difficult, less attractive. We must make our communities much more economically viable.
If we look at our neighbouring community of La Broquerie, ten years ago, we were on a par. What has happened to make La Broquerie much more economically viable than the Ste. Anne region? I sincerely believe that it is the vision of the municipal councils who sat down together precisely to answer these questions. We have a lot to offer our schools, if they want to listen to us. I know that the mayor of Ste. Anne, a close friend of Pointe-des-Chênes school, wants to listen to us. We want to move in the right direction and we will do so.
[English]
Mr. Annis: If you want a winning hockey team, do you put all of your efforts in offence to score a goal or do you reserve something for defence to avoid being scored against? I think the question you pose is really proactive or reactive, and of course, you need to have both and there needs to be a balance between the two. I would encourage in these hearings to be proactive in terms of innovative policy for things dealing with poverty in Canada. I know on the front pages, and some of your mandate has also been other political issues of the moment, and in terms of energy and global warming and these initiatives. It is not to argue against the need for great attention to the environment and to global warming, but if Canada is 3 per cent of the global problem, if we completely solved ours, there is still a huge problem left.
Poverty is nobody else's problem, it is a Canadian problem. All of Canada has to deal with it. We can deal with it and we can 100 per cent solve the problem. We are a rich nation, and I wish we would really take due diligence and set goals and benchmarks that say not how are we going to do it, but it will not exist. People at a local level will be enormously creative of where to put that investment, proactive, reactive, and I would hope this is an agenda item that you can raise in a public-interest way that is absolutely solvable. We have the resources, we have the talent, and it is an equity issue of the utmost importance.
Senator Mahovlich: Do we have many immigrants coming into Ste. Anne?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: No, in Saint-Boniface we have a francophone African population. For the moment we do not have any in Ste. Anne.
[English]
Senator Mahovlich: There is no attraction for them to go to Ste. Anne?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: I reiterate that, unfortunately, we are considered a bedroom community, which means that residents must have access to a vehicle in order to go somewhere else to work. As you know, Ste. Anne is very close to Steinbach; many of our residents come here. It is a very beautiful community, very welcoming, but it is not home. Many of our youth go to work in Winnipeg and return, they are part of the community but they do not work here. In order to attract immigrants, we need businesses and stores. Schools are the biggest employers in Ste. Anne and the health care sector is a very big employer. But we must generate different needs.
I want to say that I really can see some glimmer of hope in our communities with the last elections. I do not want to politicize the discussion, but I know that the municipality and the town have already had a joint meeting to see how they can indeed face the various challenges.
[English]
Senator Mahovlich: Mr. Annis, Brandon has been around a long time. Is immigration increasing or decreasing in this area?
Mr. Annis: Nationally, most immigration to Canada ends up in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Senator Mahovlich: Immigrants move to the big cities.
Mr. Annis: That is the history. However, some number of years ago, Manitoba entered into a federal-provincial agreement and created the Provincial Nominee Program. It is a program under provincial jurisdiction that can attract immigrants to communities. I believe Manitoba is probably at the forefront of all examples of an innovative, creative way to attract immigrants to other than urban centres. In fact, almost 40 per cent of immigrants to this province do not come just to Winnipeg; they are disbursed throughout the province.
Steinbach is one of the hot spots in terms of immigration to a rural setting. Brandon is moving in that direction, in large part because a Maple Leaf Foods plant pushes it. If they go to a second shift, there will an enormous demand for labour that is not there locally. It is an example where communities can become engaged as almost an economic development strategy or resource for industry or business to attract immigrants. The Provincial Nominee Program is a way in which they can be more actively engaged and indeed, it is working.
Senator Gustafson: What percentage of the people you work with are in problems because of family breakup?
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: I can honestly tell you that in our school, we have more separated families than families with both parents at home. I can find out the percentage if you wish. I am not sure I want to know what it actually is. If we look primarily at preschool, kindergarten, first, second and third grades, I would say that 30 to 40 per cent of the homes have broken up.
[English]
Senator Gustafson: That is a very difficult situation to deal with. You know, we can give a lot of good ideas and good suggestions, but it is so important to educate children in their formative years. It seems that there is a breakdown in our society of many of the things that used to be very strong. The Mennonite community is one example of strong traditions. I do not know the answer; can you enlighten me.
[Translation]
Ms. Beaumont: I can honestly say that I could see having more classes for parents with their children at the school. Parents would learn alongside their children and, even if they come from a broken home, we are able to work together. It is not easy because parents are not at home, some children have two homes and it is not a good thing. We just have to think differently. Our society has changed. We can no longer think traditionally when our society is in evolution. We must adapt with time. We cannot give up and say that things are not like they used to be. We have to live in the present with what we have, in order to be able to make progress. We can do it. We need the resources, the time, to be creative and above all to work together. We cannot continue to be territorial. We must work together. We cannot change our initiatives because we believe they are the best. We absolutely must continue with these initiatives.
As for day care services, I know I said I did not want to get political. But honestly, day care services were very well established. We must keep contributing to systems that are able to generate this energy. We absolutely must continue to be able to get them. We must not break them up. I am sorry, I was a little emotional.
[English]
Senator Gustafson: This community has been dealing with agriculture profit. What is happening now is that the commodity prices, at the level that they are, do not create a profit when you consider the input costs and so on. We are facing a situation that is much more serious than I have ever seen. I have spent 27 years in both the House and the Senate and I have never seen this. I can tell you, I get as many calls from Manitoba as I do from Saskatchewan, I suppose, because I represented the area for 14 years in the House. We have farmers who are desperate, and they should not be.
One of the things that this committee has been suggesting is a Canadian farm bill. We have got so many little things, doing a little here and a little there, and it just does not seem to work. We announce a program here, and unless we get some kind of a farm bill comparable to what the Americans have, there is no use even discussing the subject as far as I am concerned, because it is that serious.
Mr. Annis: I concur. It is an enormously serious issue and I understand that rural poverty is the mandate of this committee. Rural poverty is the mandate, beyond simply the policy of agricultural producers. With that in mind, my orientation is how to create a vibrant rural Canada, with agriculture as only one of the important sectors that make up the whole. One way to help agriculture is through diversification of income from sources other than agriculture.
There are a number of programs to achieve this objective. The Canadian Agricultural Skills Service program, the CASS program, and the Parklands region in this area, through the Community Futures Organization, has an innovative pilot project that way to assist farmers who are in financial difficulty. Rather than looking at how to improve the financial situation from on-farm, is to look to off-farm sources. That strategy is very important to take because ultimately the local farmer is not going to change global commodity prices. Instead, the farmers can work on creative ways to supplement or have other sources of income and supports for their whole family.
I think we need to work forward on many platforms. I am not convinced that rural Canada would be in wonderful financial shape if the agricultural sector were in excellent shape. To some extent, the better off a farm family is, the less reliant it is in terms of the community around them, because the farms are so large, the technology so great, that nine out of 10 people around them are not on the farm. It is what is happening to the rest of that community, where their kids go to school, where they have to get health services, we have to have vibrant rural communities and that is much greater than an agricultural issue.
Senator Gustafson: We put a lot of emphasis on education, but once they are educated, they do not come back to the farm. I mean, it is serious here. It is a lot more serious in Africa. I have been in Africa, and certainly education is good. Do not get me wrong, but the minute they get an education, they are gone to another country. We face similar problems here.
I have a problem with why a farmer should have to keep two jobs, work 16 hours a day, 18 hours a day to make a living, when we do not demand that of anybody else in society. We heard that from B.C. to Alberta, Saskatchewan. When farmers appear, many of them, most of them, have off-farm jobs.
Senator Mahovlich: Senator Gustafson has made an excellent point. He studied this problem for many years and he compares this to the United States and to France and European countries. Do their farmers go and get another job? No, they are subsidized. American farmers are subsidized to encourage them to stay on the farm. What we want our farmers to do is stay on that farm and farm the land. We will find immigrants to take the other jobs. I think that is what we need. Farmers need equalization, not a hand-out, just to be equal with France and the other countries.
The Chairman: We thank you very much for your concern and your passion for what you are doing. We will now welcome our second panel.
Verna Beardy, Director, New Beginnings: Poverty is more than a lack of money. It often also involves a lack of knowledge and strategies to successfully interact within mainstream society and to meet one's needs. This lack of knowledge and strategies can include not knowing how to do a job search, how to apply for a job, how to prepare for a job interview, and then how to become a valuable employee to retain a job. This lack of knowledge extends to care of a rental house or apartment, and to being a good neighbour in order to avoid eviction. Hence, the poor often become victims of the worst landlords. This lack of knowledge certainly also extends to not knowing how to help one's children succeed in school, resulting in a perpetuation of the poverty cycle, so that generation after generation grow up on welfare. This cycle can be broken.
In 1995, the Canadian Government acted upon research done on Head Start in the U.S.A., the Perry preschool study, which demonstrated that intervention in the lives of three and four year olds would bring life-long, life-changing results. The Perry preschool study followed a group of children to the age of 27 and compared them to peers in the same neighbourhoods who did not attend preschool. These children came from at-risk homes, yet after two years of preschool they went on to be considerably more successful than their peers. They went on to graduate from school, launch careers, purchase homes and vehicles, and even had more stable marriages. Many of their non-preschool peers experienced numerous arrests resulting in costs to the judicial system. They dropped out of school, ended up on welfare, and had broken relationships and marriages. The preschool graduates became taxpayers, whereas their non- preschool peers became a drain on the judicial and welfare system. The Perry preschool study quantified findings estimating that over participants' life times, the public receives a $7.16 return for every dollar it originally invested.
On the strength of this data, in 1995 the Canadian Government launched the Aboriginal Head Start Initiative. I have been privileged to work in one of these Aboriginal Head Start projects since 1996. I have been pleasantly surprised to see more immediate results. I see parents of the preschool children transform before my eyes. Many of the parents of our preschool children dropped out of school in junior high, became parents, and went on welfare. Their self-esteem is very low, lacking the knowledge and confidence to venture into the workforce.
Aboriginal Head Start with its six components, culture and language, education, health promotion, nutrition, social support and parental involvement, equip people to improve their lives. Parents become empowered, set goals for themselves and begin to improve their lives. The culture and language component improves their self-esteem. The education component teaches them how to help their children be successful in school. The Aboriginal Head Start graduate's parents join school parent councils and become proactive within their communities. Actually, the parent council of one of the schools in our city is made up almost entirely of our alumni. The nutrition and health promotion components teach parents how to maintain good health for themselves and their families. This will result in a future savings to the health care system. The social support component introduces families to agencies and services to improve their quality of life. Many parents go back to school, launch careers and become productive taxpayers.
The Perry preschool study quantified findings of a $7.16 return for every dollar invested in preschool. Those gains are based on returns from the children's lives as they enter adulthood. At New Beginnings, we see gains in the parents' lives within a few years of involvement with Aboriginal Head Start. Consequently, the actual dollar return is more immediate and is much, much higher than that stated in the Perry preschool study. If Canada invests millions now, it will reap returns of billions beginning in the near future.
In 1995, Canada launched a modest Aboriginal Head Start Initiative with spaces for 5,000 children. That is across Canada, 5,000 children. Recently the Federal Government weakened the Aboriginal Head Start by placing it within the Public Health Agency of Canada, where it must compete for funding with pandemic preparedness. Suppose Head Start was expanded to make spaces for all Canadian children living in poverty, Canada would make a giant stride toward eliminating poverty.
As I stated in the beginning, poverty is much more than a shortage of money. Most people living in poverty lack the knowledge and strategies to effectively utilize the agencies and services available to them. Programs like Head Start help people learn about those services and teach them strategies to use them effectively to step up out of poverty. Head Start works and I beseech the government to expand Head Start programs and help more people step up out of poverty.
Laurel Gardiner, Northern Co-Chair, Manitoba Food Charter: I would like to thank you for coming here to dialogue with us about the import issue of rural poverty.
In the package I have distributed there are six factors that I believe to be the most damaging factors about our existing welfare system in Canada. On the second page are eight recommendations of what I believe would make major gains using that same amount of money, basically looking at how we can turn a bad investment into a good investment. The two attachments are the minimum wage rates across Canada. I am pleased to show you Manitoba's minimum wage is going up to $8.00 an hour in April, but it is extremely low. On the last page is the human development index, which rates Manitoba First Nations as the least developed of all groups in Canada.
I was in a quandary as to whether to talk to you about the facts or to tell you some stories about how I came to know these issues. People advised me to go with the stories, so that is what I am going to do and I hope these stories will burn the urgency of this poverty onto your hearts. Both of these stories came out of Pukatawagan, Manitoba, but the comments about welfare apply right across the board, whether in the inner city, rural, northern, First Nations or off reserve. It is more about human nature than it is about status.
I was fresh out of nursing school in Pukatawagan in 1978, and the chief decreed that all able-bodied men would have to go to work for their welfare entitlement. They were working on all kinds of jobs in the community. They had a sawmill, a market garden, they were cutting a firebreak, they were catching fish, they were feeding fish to pigs, they had cows. They all had to start work on May 1, every man, unless they had a sick slip from the nursing station. On that first morning, every achy body part was aching and we had standing room only at our nursing station. I did not sign the sick slips unless the men were legitimately sick and the men had to go to work.
At first, these men were very ticked off. They did not want to go to work and they were just stomping up the road. The second week, the men were resigned to go to work and they were dragging their buns up the road. By the third week, I could see the beginning of a spring in the step of some of them men; they were walking with their chins up. The wives were down at the store buying bread and bologna, because they had to make lunch for their husbands. The kids had to go to bed at night because dad had to get his sleep. Mom had to get up in the morning to make the sandwiches, so she might as well get the kids up and get them to school.
I do not know how many of you are familiar with Manitoba's history, but Pukatawagan in 1978 was called Dodge City; we were the murder capital of Canada. We had nine murders in the 14 months. It was a rough place, but within one month, we had a 75 per cent drop in our crime rate.
Another community, Keeseekoowenin, had a 90 per cent drop in its crime rate in one month. At the nursing station, we had a 50 per cent drop in our after-hours calls. We lost the calls related to alcohol-related violence and injury. People still got sick but you know just the normal colds and stuff.
Without doing anything drastically different with any of the programs, other than putting the men to work, we had health sector gains, justice sector gains and education sector gains. It was powerful watching it. The home school coordinator could not remember a May and June where the kids had stayed in school. It was amazing to see.
In August, a social worker came to town and told them that no one had to work for welfare in Canada; one guy quit, and three guys quit and 15 guys quit, and pretty soon, everybody quit. The market garden froze in the field, pigs and cows were not fed, the sawmill was still, and the murder rate went right back up again.
I went back to school and learned to be a teacher. Five years later, I was back in Puk teaching school, health and home economics, and so this is my second story.
I was teaching health and family life, and sex education was a part of the course. On this particular day, the Grade 9 and Grade 10 boys were in my class and we were talking about what men and women did in their families. These boys, they all knew what women should do; they should cook and clean and look after the kids. They also knew what the men should do; the men should work to support the family. All of these boys told me that. Two of these boys, Fred and Bruce, were already fathers, and so they should work to support the family. Meanwhile, I knew that 80 per cent of the families in Puk were on welfare. How does this image of man as provider work with the reality that is outside the door? Finally I said is there not anything else? I said what kind of work? They said wage jobs. So I said, well, what other work could they do to provide for their families? What about hunting? Well, that is on the weekend. It is still all wage perception of provider. I finally said to them what does a man do for the family if he is on welfare. It was like I had hit them in the gut. They were quiet and they were usually yappy. Finally, Fred from the back of the class said, and excuse my language, but he said, "He fucks the old lady.'' I said, "Fred that is not nice.'' He said, "Ms. Gardiner, that is all there is.'' I realized that I made these boys face their own uselessness, and I pulled myself together, and then afterwards I went into the teacher's room and I cried.
All of the damages that I put on this next page here grew out of those two learnings about what we need to do to go ahead, and what it is about welfare that is killing people, especially men.
My summary is that welfare is a bad investment. We have $163 million of welfare coming into First Nations every year that is doing nothing besides putting bread on the table and making people sick. Welfare creates damage; it incurs extra cost to fix these damages; it produces no additional benefits; it leverages no additional resources.
I recommend a national inquiry into your Social Union Framework Agreement, SUFA, and the provincial welfare policies spawned off that policy. I recommend that we turn welfare into a good investment that redeploys this $160 million to $200 million of welfare that we receive in Manitoba every year, combine it with partner resources from employment and training and economic development, and put it to use in human development, community service and economic development.
Dr. Jan Roberts, Medical Officer of Health, South Eastman Health: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I will be speaking to the handout that you have on poverty and rural health.
Manitoba's rural health regions do indeed differ very widely. Assiniboine is typical of our region in western Manitoba. Its population pyramid shows an aging population. That pyramid is in fact almost rectangular.
Burntwood Regional Health Authority in the far north of the province is a very young population, reflecting the very large contribution of First Nations residents. South Eastman's pyramid is fairly solid throughout all of the age groups, although you will note the narrowing at the waist of the pyramid where our young people move away for education and employment.
As a regional health authority, we have 60,000 residents scattered over 10,000 square kilometres. We are not richly resourced. We have four hospitals, four ambulance sites and seven sites for physician services, two of these itinerant. Health status overall in this region is typical of Southern Manitoba populations and in fact that of Canada overall, whereas Northern Manitoba populations bear extremely high burdens of illness and premature death.
Just the same, we have all the standard major health problems. We have evidence of significant health disparities and we have all the classic rural problems with access like availability and distance transportation and so on.
As in all of Canada, our population is rapidly aging and we are seeing rising numbers of elderly and highly vulnerable seniors. Uncommonly, as you already know, we are experiencing significant in-migration. Almost 10,000 new Manitobans have entered this area since 1999, a half of them under the age of 19, and 60 per cent from overseas. We are at the point now where one in every six of our residents has recently arrived, and this immediate area has seen greater than 20 per cent population increase.
The local health system is having increasing difficulty meeting health needs, particularly for seniors, immigrants and young families. Service availability and accessibility, already relatively low, are steadily diminishing, and we are struggling to keep up let alone make progress towards improving health. We are highly conscious of the fact that health is not the major player, health services are not the major player when it comes to factors that make and keep populations healthy. The lion's share of these factors lies in the social and economic environment. There is a wealth of data showing a socio-economic health gradient, that health, no matter how it is measured, increases steadily along with increasing levels of education, employment and income.
This Manitoba example of life expectancy by income shows steadily diminishing levels of life expectancy, along with steadily diminishing levels of income, which is true for both rural and urban populations.
This socioeconomic gradient in health is explained only in part by health practices. There is a significant role played by socioeconomic stress, low income, few opportunities and little control. These have biological effects that are actually cumulative over years.
In this area, as in all parts of rural Manitoba, socioeconomic levels are relatively low. Average employment income is well below the Manitoba average across almost all of our municipalities. With two people working, and well over 70 per cent of families, including preschool families, have two people working, most municipalities manage to get the median household income up to or beyond the Manitoba average, but there is a huge gradient across municipalities. You will note that the income gap between the poorest and the richest of our municipalities is greater than the median household income for that poorest municipality.
Our workers tend to be far more likely to be in blue collar than white collar occupations. Across all of rural Manitoba, education levels are much lower than they are in Winnipeg. A much higher percentage of residents lack a high school certificate, and at the other end a much lower percentage have post-secondary qualifications.
We know that reducing societal inequities improves health, not just for the poorest members, but also across the entire population. This does not imply the redistribution of wealth, but rather the recognition that responsibility for reducing inequalities cross those sector lines. We must find ways of working together to give people from all levels opportunities for learning and developing coping skills. We must work together to help teach life and employment skills and help to build community understanding and strong community support systems.
We realize that this is going to be central to improving the health of rural populations and will have far greater impact than the health care system acting alone. It promises what an illness care system cannot, and that is a sustainable improvement in population health through wellness.
Senator Mercer: You presented us with some interesting facts, strong stories and statistics that mean a lot to us. Are you proposing or suggesting that welfare programs, social assistance programs now have a work component to them to, for the self-esteem side, for, well, all of the things that you mentioned in your stories. Is that what your recommendation?
Ms. Gardiner: Absolutely Senator, work and/or training, salary bases or training allowances, one or the other.
Senator Mercer: Are you suggesting that if we had a work component to Social Assistance that the Social Assistance level change be higher for those who work, put in work time as opposed to those who do not? I just want to make sure I understand you correctly.
Ms. Gardiner: The main thing is to get people moving, doing something. Whether people are allowed to volunteer, we have had welfare recipients, not in First Nations but in the city, being told they can not volunteer to help out at the school or they will be cut off welfare. They have to stay home if they are going to be on welfare; this is wrong. You know, there are many ways you can be of service to your community, that will benefit the community, that there is no budget to pay for but it makes the community a better place and it gives you something useful to do and something to put on a resume. It is not always necessarily that it is paid work, but they should be allowed to volunteer to help where they can.
Senator Mercer: If you tie that with what Verna told us, you are absolutely right. It makes sense because she has told us about the change in parents getting involved because of the preschool.
Ms. Gardiner: I have seen Verna's program work; it is awesome. What it does for those parents is awesome; they get out there and it gives them so much confidence.
Senator Mercer: Verna, the $100 a month that the current government has provided into the program versus the agreement between the Government of Manitoba and the Government of Canada for a previous program to provide new spaces, the question is, is the $100 having any effect?
Ms. Beardy: No.
Senator Mercer: Would the old program be stronger?
Ms. Beardy: The old program would be stronger. It is not enough to help working families who have children in day care, like their bills, $100 does little towards their bills. Families that are at home, okay, every $100 does help, but the reality is that we need more daycare spaces. So you think the greater good would have been to enlarge the daycare spaces.
Senator Chaput: Dr. Roberts you said that 70 per cent of the parents needed to work, both parents were working to enable them to have a decent salary. Did I hear correctly, is it 70 per cent?
Dr. Roberts: Well, my comment was simply the proportion of people, families with two people working.
Senator Chaput: You talked about immigration, I believe, in this part of Manitoba. Did you say that the increase in population, there was an increase of 20 per cent because of new Canadians?
Dr. Roberts: In Steinbach and area, the increase has been 20 per cent since 1999.
Senator Chaput: Could you tell us how it has been working in this part of Manitoba, how the immigrants were received and how the services are administered? Is it a success story, if I may ask?
Dr. Roberts: I am only qualified to speak to the health piece. On the other hand, it seems like it is very much a positive thing all around. However, one sees more clearly that the people who are immigrating to the area are going to affect the prosperity of the community and we depend very much upon them for that prosperity. Almost all of the immigrants coming to Manitoba now are doing so under the Refugee Sponsorship Program. How we manage and the services we provide to these families now are going to affect the health and well-being of our communities in the future.
Senator Mahovlich: Verna, is there some way that we can look at how the government weakened your Head Start program by putting it within the Public Health Agency? Maybe we could do a little study when we get back to Ottawa. Do they have a reason why they did this? Was it too costly?
Ms. Beardy: I do not know their reason; I just know the aftermath. Now we are competing with pandemic preparedness. The national office has been severely weakened by just withdrawing funding and putting it elsewhere. We were in a better position under Health Canada rather than the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Senator Mahovlich: Was your program successful?
Ms. Beardy: The Aboriginal Head Start Initiative has been a great success in Thompson, Wabowden and in Thicket Portage; I have three sites. We meet with counterparts across the province who report similar gains in parents and families. Never mind the gain; we know the children are going to be much more successful. We see gains within a few years, in that the families, the parents become transformed and we have seen those gains in all the Head Start Programs across Canada. This is an investment; it is not just an expense, but also an investment. Put in $1 million now, you are going to gain a billion soon, within years. You do not have to wait a lifetime or for the adulthood of the child, it happens much sooner. The weakening of such programs, for political reasons is sad indeed.
Senator Mahovlich: Well, maybe we can look at that.
Ms. Beardy: Yes, and look beyond just our Aboriginal children to all the poor children of Canada, all of the families.
Senator Mahovlich: How are they doing in Baker Lake as far as education is concerned?
Ms. Beardy: I cannot answer that question as I only get to speak with other Head Starts within the Province of Manitoba. My Head Start program is off reserve and I cannot comment on the on reserve program.
Senator Zimmer: The impact of your presentations is very pronounced. In the 1960s, I did work in Thompson at Inco and, of course, I know exactly where Pukatawagan is.
My question relates to the welfare system. It is almost a negative program that says, do not work and you will get welfare. Do any of you have any recommendations how we get beyond that negative program? It is an age-old program.
Ms. Gardiner: Both on and off reserve, provincial welfare policy allows welfare dollars to be used for training allowances, but it is rarely implemented. If the welfare worker can get a lady to get a job washing dishes for $7.60 an hour, she would rather that she did that than pay welfare for two years to go to school to get her business administration diploma or something like that, that could permanently get the family off welfare.
The trouble with minimum wage jobs is that you are sending them without the adequate skill and income base. If they get another mouth to feed, they cannot handle it. I could not live on $7.60 an hour. We must try to use the welfare that we know is coming in. Where will that person be in five years if she does not go to school? People will still be there in five years if we do not use the welfare dollars for training allowances. We must use the money and combine it with the existing HRDC employment and training money, and the economic development money coming in, to take a strategic look at mobilizing people. That is what it is about and it is possible. There are communities where it has been done, and one of them is The Pas, Manitoba.
Senator Zimmer: Dr. Roberts or Ms. Beardy, do you want to add to that?
Ms. Beardy: I agree whole-heartedly with what Laurel said.
Senator Mercer: I am always interested when somebody tells us the minimum wage. I always do the math and $8.00 an hour, which it will be in April in Manitoba, at a 40-hour week, works out to $16,640 a year. If you are a single parent or a parent of more than one child, it is pretty difficult to survive on that amount of money.
Laurel, I have had a difficult time with this workfare idea. Would it be better, I am trying to find a way to take the learnings that you have and combine them with my civil libertarian attitude that we can not force people to do work. The Province of Ontario has had workfare. Have you examined that? This committee has not visited Ontario, but it would be a good question for us to ask when we are there.
I am a firm believer that the way out of poverty is through education. Would it be better if we said that able people must take a training or education program? Obviously, there are certain people who are not able to participate.
Ms. Gardiner: I believe that the employment and training offices and the welfare offices should come together, and that each client should be helped to their greatest level of potential. We have an awesome protected workshop in Thompson that does wonderful furniture with people that are mentally challenged. These guys are so empowered, they are so proud of themselves, and they are working to their max. That is what we want to encourage, is for people to work to their max, whatever that is.
Senator Mercer: I think it is not just in the Aboriginal community, but also in all communities of economically disadvantaged people. One of the problems, I do a lot of work in the inner city of Halifax. The biggest problem that we have with many of the young people, and we have heard it from other people across the country, is they do not have role models. There are few people who are a success from their community. So if they do not see success, they do not know that they can be successful.
Ms. Gardiner: That is true.
Senator Mercer: It seems to me, I think your idea of co-locating the social services obviously in the employment office is a good one, because it should go hand-in-hand, but there should also be, I think, a bigger educational component.
Ms. Gardiner: My seventh recommendation deals with step off programs. Right now, welfare in Canada is all or nothing and there is no integrated way to get off it. I recommend certain steps like when you first get back to work and do not earn quite as much as you earned on welfare and you get to keep more than $150 before it starts to be clawed back. Second, I recommend that in the next step, you do not collect your basic needs, but welfare will pay the rent, the utilities, and your health benefits. In the third step, you work, you pay the rent, but if you need them, you can use those health benefits, like the glasses and the drugs. That stepping off system sees people gradually paying their own bills and getting off welfare.
Senator Mercer: You are introducing some logic into the program; we will have none of that.
Senator Mahovlich: I am from Northern Ontario, and religion played a part in my upbringing. When I look here in Steinbach and I see the Mennonites, I wonder if their religion plays a big part in their success. I wonder if they instil in their young a sense of belief. Do you think education has anything to do with success? Is it important for us?
Dr. Roberts: We believe that it has a great deal to do with it. In fact, if you look around South Eastman, there are churches not just in Steinbach, in Mennonite communities, but everywhere. We are giving a session on an unrelated subject with two ministerial folk, and we are amazed to find that our invitation list is140 long. Why does South Eastman, with so many factors working against it, have the good health status that it does? We believe the answer lies in its social support systems and social cohesion that makes such a difference in this region
Ms. Beardy: I would like to speak to Aboriginal spirituality. As an observer and student of history, we know when Canada initially made contact with Aboriginal people, they were telling Aboriginal people, give up your spirituality and embrace the churches.
In 1996, I began to work with Aboriginal Head Start, and as I went to the initial meetings where Health Canada was advising people how to establish Aboriginal Head Start, I was dismayed to see nothing has changed. Only now the government people were pushing Aboriginal people to go back into what was perceived as their traditional spirituality. I was dismayed because it is not respecting the intelligence of Aboriginal people to make choices for themselves and their families regarding spirituality.
I am a Treaty Indian and have been immersed in that culture. What many people are propounding as traditional spirituality is imported from the southern U.S. Our Cree people say that their ancestors did not do many of those particular things; they have their practices but not those. Here the Health Canada people were telling people working in Aboriginal Head Start to do these things in the Head Starts, like promote that. So again, they are telling people, Aboriginal people, you are not smart enough to make your own spiritual choices, the government now is going to tell you. I thought that was sad. Some Head Starts have proceeded and done that.
The Ma-Mow-We-Tak Friendship Centre in Thompson has been very wise. They recognized that error, and so they established a policy whereby the friendship respects individual people, Aboriginal people too. They can make their own spiritual choices. They respect individuals' rights to make their spiritual choices. So we do not force these things in our Head Start.
There are people in Thompson and surrounding areas doing various things like sweat lodges and smudging ceremonies. If people inquire, we can direct them to where they can find that.
Many Aboriginal people want to remain with the various churches. I think it is a matter of, again, being patronizing. Let us not do that. Aboriginal people have wisdom; let them choose their spiritual choices for themselves.
Senator Mahovlich: In Thompson are the elders teaching the youth about their spirituality, or is that washed off the map.
Ms. Beardy: Again, it is imported. Some elders have been taken to conferences in Arizona and such and come back with those teachings. Actually, the elders are victims of the residential school fiasco, so they are wounded people. Some are clinging to the churches and some are not. Some of the elders have just been trained in the U.S. spirituality.
Senator Mahovlich: We have lost something here.
Ms. Beardy: We have lost something. There is a lot of woundedness.
Senator Mahovlich: I know. I was on an Aboriginal committee and one time we had before us some witnesses, and this was a band from around Cornwall, and the first thing that started our meeting was this elder brought in her daughter and the daughter said a prayer before our meeting. I thought, gosh, that was great. We got off on the right foot.
Ms. Beardy: They still start meetings with prayer.
Senator Mahovlich: Laurel, do you want to comment on religion?
Ms. Gardiner: Well, I believe that churches can be a help on the way out of the pit, but I do think, that I have on my paper on the first page there, that role loss equals soul loss. When you take away the provider role, you rip a lot out of a man. It is a multi-sectoral solution. You have to put together the ropes of social development programs, the ropes of employment and training, the ropes of church, the ropes of school. You tie those ropes together and that is what gets people out of the pit.
The Chairman: Literacy brought me to Steinbach. You have touched on a great number of issues and concerns. It took 15 years before the Aboriginal community had a national association. We almost were afraid it was going to go when there were some cuts made last fall in Ottawa on Aboriginal programs, which they are now continuing to support for at least the next year.
I am just wondering, in this area where education and everything else is so important, are your programs helpful? Are there enough programs? What kind of programs bring in young people but also older people to help them get that extra piece that makes life a little easier?
Ms. Beardy: Not enough.
The Chairman: Not enough.
Ms. Beardy: When the government capped education funding for Aboriginal people it really slowed down progress.
The Chairman: Was that a provincial program?
Ms. Beardy: No, the Mulroney government capped funding of Aboriginal education, and just at the time when enough Aboriginal people were graduating from high school and preparing to go to university and become successful, at that point the government capped post-secondary funding. It really slowed the progress of Aboriginal people to become self-sufficient.
Ms. Gardiner: There is not enough, but the pots are not combined effectively and efficiently with the existing resources. It is easy to sit there and say not enough, not enough, not enough, give us more. There are multiple benefits to be gained by combining resources. If you are going to co-locate, so that you can use both pots and both sets of staff toward mobilizing people, you could do much more, a lot more bang for the existing bucks. Then I think, yes, we would still need more but I think we need to demonstrate that we have taken these existing resources as far as we can go with them. We have combined them as effectively and creatively as we can and we still need more. Until that first combining pots and programs happens, I think the government should be pushing and forcing and developing incentives for communities and for provinces to blend those programs. Until that happens, I would like to see how far we can go with what we have. The Pas really did well and their people are moving off welfare and into the workforce.
The Chairman: From your perspective, Jan, and you are more in the health area again, I am curious about the literacy issues as they affect how people react and are able to react to the kind of programs that you are offering.
Dr. Roberts: Well, I am hearing so many things that overlap with what we do. But of course the thing about communities is that they do not live in sectors, they live as groups in communities so that naturally everything touches everything else in the end. With this data, you might think that there is an obligation on us to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak.
Indeed, we have seen our responsibility as that as the information holders, we had better be sharing it as widely as we can with communities. We are also the only organization in this region that has a region-wide mandate. We think it is our responsibility, too, to facilitate the bringing together of disparate community groups and organizations that have common interests.
In talking about these concepts here in the second part of the presentation, it is dry stuff, and people glaze over quickly, but in focusing conversation around it, we have focused on literacy. All of the concepts in here are embodied in that one area of literacy, in its very broadest sense. However, literacy is what determines your socioeconomic status today, and it will be a determinant to the socioeconomic status of your children and have that generational effect. There are so many more things wrapped up in that word, socioeconomic status.
You do have to go very far in this region to find people that do not have the bonny good health that the statistical charts show. In fact, by sharing the information that we have and bringing together many, many groups in the community to talk about literacy from various angles, there have been some wonderful conversations and achievements in this region.
You will hear this afternoon from Elaine Wilson from Arborgate, who began a preschool parent and child program where there was absolutely nothing. Schools do not deliver preschool services at the provincial level. You will hear some wonderful stories from her.
Our responsibility was to share our information with the local municipal council, for example, who made a commitment to sponsoring that program, with the school board at Seine River School Division so that they could understand what was going on with their own children and what Arborgate was asking for.
Seine River School Division is a marvellous example of a literacy focused division. They really get it. They have invested a great deal in the literacy of their children from the early years on.
This is the kind of work that we need to do for health. If you take that pie chart, it is twice as important as anything we will accomplish in a lifetime of working in the regular health system.
The Chairman: It sounds as though things have moved forward on this issue. Through what programmes, does it come mainly on the local level; does it come from the provincial government? Is the provincial government showing an activist interest in this now? It has been pretty good here in Manitoba in comparative terms.
Dr. Roberts: Yes, it has been good, but when we talk about recognizing that the responsibility crosses all sector levels, there is not an area of the community, I mean churches or agriculture or anything that is listed that does not have a vested interest in the literacy of people. In fact, we have gone the route, and Laurel's conversation recently reminded me of doing with what we have, because it is the working together that makes the difference. We see the health and education programs sharing resources in order to implement new programming, not with new dollars though, just doing different things with old dollars in order to have new programs.
I think a wonderful provincial level example is the Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet in Manitoba. That includes five government departments, Health, Finance, Justice, Family Services and Housing, and I always forget the fifth. It is through that committee that all funding for not just early years children now flows, no matter to which organization or department. That has made a huge difference in cohesiveness and what can be achieved. We have made great strides in this province with regard to early years and we regard that. That is delivered through health.
Senator Zimmer: In these issues, we are always looking outwards; sometimes we do not look inwards, back to values, family values, home, schoolwork, spirituality. We are in the world and decade of BlackBerries and cell phones and Ipods, and we are caught up in this modern world.
I think part of the success may be, and I would like your comments on this, a combining of values with the resources and the fibre of it. Steinbach is a living example of a great community whereby the Mennonite community within Steinbach really strengthens those values.
Very briefly, what are your comments as far as looking inwards and combining with the resources with these family values?
Ms. Gardiner: When you look at the determinants of health, income and social status is number one, social connectedness is number two, level of education is number three, I think housing and environment is number four, I think. The First Nations took a bit hit with the boarding schools, where a big part of the damage was not what happened in the school, but in taking the child out of the family. That hurt the family cohesiveness and connectedness between generations in the communities. I am not negating the bad things that happened inside the schools, but in terms of ripping the community apart, taking the kids away and then trying to put them back 10 years later was hugely damaging and left kids without role models. When you are housed in a dorm, you do not learn how to parent. You learn how to parent from watching your parents, for better or worse. The second most important determinant of health took a huge hit through the boarding school system.
What you said is important and I do not think I could say it any better. For the First Nations, I think that is one of the sources of the damage, is that pulling apart of family. That is really hard to replace back in again, once it has been pulled apart, once you have ripped the fabric of a community. What you notice about Steinbach is this community really has not been ripped, but many communities have.
Dr. Roberts: The more fully we can support young families, the stronger our community fabric will be. In other words, if they are to live, they need to work, and then I think that they need to be able to do that and parent well at the same time.
Senator Gustafson: It seems that we are living in a time when governments want to control us, or there is more government control all the time. We are controlled almost from the cradle to the grave. It seems to me that takes away the initiative of people to work, to accomplish on their own and so on. In addition, much of our society was built on that initiative. I would like to hear your comments.
Ms. Beardy: In the Aboriginal community, trapping was a livelihood for many years, but, as you know, fur became politically incorrect. Farming has always been an acceptable practice, but with the low prices and other factors beyond people's control, it does not matter how much initiative they may have.
Ms. Gardiner: It is hard to mobilize couch potatoes; I have the same trouble with my 13 year old. When you look at the communities, it is usually the people over 65 years that are out of bed early in the morning. The kids are in bed until noon. That is not anything that goes across any kind of First Nation, on reserve, off reserve, that is just a general comment. If I am going to do well at welfare, I have to sell how incapable I am and how much I lack. If I am going to do well at work, I have to sell you on how capable I am and on my potential. For somebody to move from welfare, where they have to be skilled at being skill-less, to the workforce, it is like an 180-degree turnaround in the gears of your mind. It is very hard to do. It is quite an adjustment. A person's worldview and self-image are very resistant to change.
People need to have significant repeated experiences with success before they can really believe that they are successful and before they can believe that they can take risks. The small steps part is important, you know.
Senator Gustafson: There was a good example of that today in the front page of The Globe and Mail. China has now passed legislation that citizens can own their own property; and there is pride in that, and they have come a long way. At the end of that article, it said that it is working well for China. It will likely even challenge many of the other economic countries.
Senator Mahovlich: There was one term about maybe six or seven months ago, we passed 40 bills. In Africa, Kenya passed one bill; I believe it was in five years. We may have a lot of legislation, and maybe we are legislating ourselves to death, I do not know, but when I look around, I think we are doing pretty well compared to other countries. I think as the population grows, we need more legislation. We are going to need more as we go along.
You are mentioning, well, you know, we used to hunt for furs, but that was years ago. Times change, people change, so we have to move with the times. I think as the population grows, you are going to need more laws to control things — better ones too.
The Chairman: I agree senator, and we will need a better understanding of the law.
Ms. Beardy: If fur prices are rising, there is greater interest for more young people to get involved in the fur industry.
Senator Mahovlich: There will still have to be some control.
Ms. Beardy: It is still like a hobby farm, you do it on weekends.
The Chairman: I wish to thank you all for your participation here today. This has been an interesting session.
The committee adjourned.