Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 5 - Evidence - November 1, 2011
OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:33 a.m. to examine and report on the federal government's constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, and on other matters generally relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada.
Senator Gerry St. Germain (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either on CPAC or the Web. I am Senator Gerry St. Germain, from British Columbia, and I have the honour and privilege of chairing this committee.
The mandate of this committee is to examine legislation in matters relating to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada generally. In order to understand the concerns of our constituents, we regularly invite representatives from national Aboriginal organizations to testify before us. Rather than assigning a topic for discussion, we leave the floor open to them to educate us as to their membership's most pressing issues. These sessions are invaluable in helping the committee decide what future studies it will undertake in order to best serve the Aboriginal community.
This morning, we will hear from one witness, the National Association of Friendship Centres. For many years, friendship centres have provided referral and support services in areas such as health, housing, employment, recreation, human resources development and culture to Aboriginal peoples living in urban communities. The not-for- profit National Association of Friendship Centres represents 117 friendship centres and seven provincial-territorial associations, and manages and administers federal funding for friendship centres across the country.
The organization is governed by a voluntary board of directors comprised of 11 regional representatives, including a youth representative. There is also a five-member executive committee comprised of the president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and youth executive.
[Translation]
But before hearing our witness, I would like to introduce the members of the committee who are here this morning.
[English]
The deputy chair of this committee is Senator Lillian Dyck, from Saskatchewan. Also present are Senator Ataullahjan from Ontario, Senator Greene Raine from British Columbia, Senator Patterson from Nunavut, Senator Demers from Quebec and Senator Meredith from Ontario.
Good morning senators and welcome.
Members of the committee, I ask you to help me in welcoming our witnesses from the National Association of Friendship Centres. We have Mr. Jeff Cyr, Executive Director, and Mr. Conrad Saulis, Policy Director.
Mr. Cyr, we look forward to your presentation.
Jeff Cyr, Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres: Good morning. Mr. Chair and distinguished members of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, I wish to acknowledge the traditional land of the Algonquin nation on which we are meeting today. I will introduce myself and the organization as we go along. My name is Jeff Cyr. I am a Metis from Manitoba and Executive Director of the National Association of Friendship Centres, the NAFC. This is my first official presentation to your committee as Executive Director of the NAFC, and I thank the committee for this opportunity to present on behalf of my organization.
As you are aware, the world's population reached 7 billion people earlier this week. Of these 7 billion people, it is important to note that over 70 per cent reside in urban areas, a migration trend that has been increasing over the last three decades. Canada's Aboriginal population reflects the global trend, and is now almost 60 per cent urbanized. When we discuss Aboriginal issues, we need to discuss them in the context of a young, urbanized population.
For context, I am going to provide background to my organization — who we are, what we do and why friendship centres are critical engines of social change on the Canadian landscape.
The National Association of Friendship Centres is now comprised of 119 friendship centres — community-based service organizations — from coast to coast to coast in Canada. The centres are assisted in their work by six provincial and territorial associations and, of course, by our national office here in Ottawa.
The history of the friendship centre movement, found in the cities of Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver starting in the 1950s, is now nearly 60 years old. The history and evolution of the friendship centre movement has been one of continual growth and expansion, focused on meeting the health, social, economic, educational and, importantly, transitional needs of First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples to urban centres of our country. Friendship centres not only provide invaluable services to urban Aboriginal people who utilize the programs, but the movement also provides employment opportunities at the local level. Nationally, friendship centres now employ over 2,600 people, 72 per cent of whom are women.
The overall purpose of the friendship centres in Canada is to improve the life chances of the urban Aboriginal population. Our cadre and continuum of services include prenatal programming, healthy babies, Head Start, youth programming, mental health and wellness, lifelong care, diabetes clinics, and drug and alcohol prevention, all of which are vital programs that help address the spiralling costs of health care in Canada. We also provide education-related programming, which includes literacy, alternative high schools and, of course, the previously mentioned Head Start Program for young children.
Friendship centres also provide employment and training-related programs, coupled with economic development support services, which help urban Aboriginal people to establish secure futures for their families.
The areas of violence and youth at risk of sexual exploitation and crime are of very high importance, as is protecting women and children from harm and family violence. While friendship centres have long-term successes in offering and delivering these vital services, there are many challenges that we confront, some of which include demographic realities while others pertain to organizational capacity.
As mentioned previously when we talked about migration, the urban Aboriginal population in Canada continues to increase. In 1996 it was 47 per cent; in 2001, 49 per cent; in 2006, 54 per cent; and we can guess that it is about 60 per cent today. As well, our population is extremely young; 48 per cent of our population is under the age of 25. These demographic realities place strong pressures on the human and fiscal capacities of our centres, especially in light of the fact that federal core funding of the Aboriginal Friendship Centres Program has been frozen at $16 million since prior to 1996. Even with this limited funding, the friendship centres leverage from provincial, municipal, private and federal sources $8.25 for every $1 put in.
Throughout our history, friendship centres have been places of social innovation that have required employees to be creative in finding resources to meet the full scope of needs that urban Aboriginal peoples have. Friendship centres have also been crucial in the development of other urban-based support services, including Aboriginal health centres and urban economic development opportunities, including the social economy.
Friendship centres in our provincial and territorial organization also have productive and well-established relationships with municipal, provincial and territorial governments. These relationships provide additional funding that is utilized to offer the cadre of programming and services I mentioned earlier.
The National Association of Friendship Centres has fostered strong relationships with the federal government, including work on issues with the Public Health Agency and Health Canada in particular on H1N1, diabetes, childhood obesity and tobacco cessation; on mental health policies; on victim services with Corrections Canada and the RCMP; on literacy employment strategies with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada; and with Parliament through the All-party Friendship Centre Caucus co-chaired by MPs Jean Crowder and Chris Warkentin.
The NAFC is also fostering strong relationships with several universities in Canada through our Urban Aboriginal Knowledge Network. Our relationship with these universities is central to a research proposal we submitted to SSHRC and was valuable in hosting a very successful national health conference in February of this year.
As you can see, the friendship centre movement is busy in Canada.
I have not highlighted our international work — I just returned from China on Monday night, for example — and our efforts to work hand in hand with our partner in the federal government, the Office the Federal Interlocutor.
We are very busy and we need to be. The urban Aboriginal population is dynamic, growing and young. Priorities for the movement are broad and include health, employment training, youth programming, economic development and the social economy, crime prevention, creating safe communities, protecting First Nations, Metis and Inuit heritage, urban environments and Mother Earth. Although we know some things about the life conditions and challenges of Canada's urban Aboriginal peoples, there is still much remaining to be documented and researched. There are also topics that pertain to legal matters, including status and membership, the portability of First Nations rights and matrimonial real property, to mention a few.
My strong recommendation for your upcoming work is to look at the urban Aboriginal environment, existing structures, programs and services, and how best to prepare and support this young and growing community. All of the social and economic concerns of Aboriginal people, whether education, health care, housing, employment and training, et cetera, are caught up in the urban experience.
We also need to look at existing federal and provincial programming, for example, the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. We think the UAS has great potential but needs its funding doubled, at a minimum — it is currently $13 million in 13 cities; and it needs to have a deep partnership with friendship centres. To us, we are the urban Aboriginal strategy. Friendship centres and the national association are the largest urban Aboriginal service delivery network in Canada and the world. We are investment-ready vehicles; we are professional service delivery providers; and we are poised to be engines of social change in urban communities. We implore you to study this urban environment as it will define a good portion of the Aboriginal experience in the coming decades and the success of urban Aboriginal people. It is not just good for Aboriginal people; it is good for Canada to invest its money and time.
I look forward to your decision regarding what you will focus on in your next committee agenda item. I am sure I will be back before you at that time to speak with you about the topic you have chosen. Thank you — Meegwetch, to all of you for your kind attention. I look forward to more dialogue on the issues impacting the lives of urban Aboriginal people and friendship centres.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cyr.
You referred to $16 million, but do you have a total operational budget?
Mr. Cyr: It depends on how you define it in terms of the national office or including all friendship centres.
The Chair: The whole movement.
Mr. Cyr: It is about $235 million, including provincial, municipal and private funding.
The Chair: My other question is on Indian registration. You are responsible for band membership and citizenship in the exploratory process. Can you explain Indian registration, Mr. Cyr?
Mr. Cyr: I do not think it is fair to stay that we are responsible for it. We partnered with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to undertake discussions about the McIvor case, the implementation and what we call the ``exploratory process.'' To us, it is about questions of identity, belonging and membership. We developed a process, led by Mr. Saulis, to submit reports to the Government of Canada about how our membership feels about those issues. We rolled it out this year and it has largely wrapped up.
The Chair: The one area that this committee has never really focused on as far as a study is concerned is the Metis community. We are both in a bit of a conflict. Is there an area that relates to the Metis community specifically that you think should be explored? Do you think that your organization covers the spectrum in respect of First Nations, Inuit and Metis?
Mr. Cyr: The friendship centre in essence is a status blind movement. It covers equally Aboriginal people and non- Aboriginal people who want to use the services of the centre. Of course, between Ontario and British Columbia, you get more of a Metis population within our centres. That materializes with more Metis cultural events and services specifically self-determined and designed for that population base. Statistically, Metis are more urbanized than the First Nations population, especially in large cities like Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. We clearly serve them all.
As you can tell, I am a Metis and Mr. Saulis is First Nations, from Maliseet, New Brunswick. The NAFC is a status- blind organization, and we do not make distinctions based on those cultures.
Senator Dyck: You have described a very broad range of programs offered by the friendship centres. I have several questions. Perhaps I will start with Aboriginal groupings, since it was raised by our chair.
Do you think that when we talk about programming for Aboriginal peoples in urban centres we need to maintain that distinction between First Nations, non-status, Metis and Inuit? Is there any advantage or disadvantage in terms of people accessing programs? Are there any barriers to someone if their identity is Metis as opposed to First Nation? Is programming equally available? Would there be some programs that might be more applicable to others?
Mr. Cyr: I think the short answer is no. The programming is equally available to all the different categories or ethnic groupings or however you want to use the terminology. As far as we can tell within the friendship centre movement, there is no advantage to splitting the program between whether it is a First Nation or Metis. You will have culturally specific events, but of course it is open for First Nations to attend Metis events and vice versa. Generally, it is an open door policy in terms of programming, and we find that very helpful. There are all kinds of identity issues, as you well know. Metis people can but choose not to be part of a registered Indian Act band. For us, it is much more valuable to keep the program open, and it suits the urban environment where you get a lot of mixing among the populations. There is no First Nations core area where people live, or Metis. They are intermixed within the environment any ways.
Senator Dyck: In terms of your programming and reaching the people you want to reach, what would you say your success rate is? Most of the Aboriginal peoples now, as you indicated, live in urban centres. How do you find the people? How do you draw them in? If you draw them in, are you drawing in quite a large population, or are you drawing in more youth than older people? What would right now be the main type of people that come to you looking for assistance?
Mr. Cyr: I would say that the youth and programming up until that middle age area is probably more. I do not have the statistics at my fingertips.
Friendship centres have been around so long, and so many people have come up through the friendship centre movement, sort of like an Aboriginal public service. They have worked in it or been a part of it for so long that, when they come from rural, remote or reserve communities, they are looking for a place where their culture is practised and people are like them and can communicate with them in the same way. They come to friendship centres. It is not a matter of us advertising to go out and draw people in; they are coming regardless.
I think we are under-serving the community in the sense because we are under-resourced and undercapitalized, by and large. We can do more. Structurally, if we look back, this was called the migrating people's program many a year ago, before it changed over in the early 1990s. The funding levels essentially have been that way since prior to what is written here, 1996. It actually probably stopped in about 1988. You have basically the funding level of FTEs — and you understand the terminology of FTEs — at a level based on 1980s with no cost of the living increase. You have very underfunded organizations, or what I call structural poverty in the organizations. They manage to do a lot with little, and they leverage more money. If we looked at some programs, I think we would be fascinated to see that you could get a two- to-one or three-to-one ratio on leveraging. Friendship centres are leveraging at 8.5 or probably closer to $9 to $1 and manage to really draw in the provincial and municipal governments.
Can we reach more? Yes, and we can do much more, but the problem is they are stretched to the limit. Every time we roll out something new, like the exploratory process, it taxes the capacity of the organizations. It is okay to say, ``Here is $500,000; go consult,'' but the problem is those people's time is already split 20 ways, and that would be one of many programs.
By and large, the majority of our programming is serving health, first and foremost, followed by family and cultural programming and youth programming. Those are the orders of capacity.
One stat I will mention — I am going on much too long here — is that the friendship centres have about 2.5 million points of contact per year in their programming, so 2.5 million Aboriginal people are being served across the country, and it could be a lot more.
Senator Dyck: You indicated with regard to the world population that about 50 or 60 per cent is under the age of 25, which is about the same as it is for the Aboriginal population. Given the relative youth of the population — it may even be worse in urban centres, I am not sure — what do you see as a pressing need in the type of programming you offer? What should be done for the youth?
Mr. Cyr: It comes across a range of services that the youth need. Education, of course, is a key element, but a couple other things go along with it in order to have successful education. One is housing for youth in education, especially if they are not from that area, which many are not. Housing comes along with that, and social supports and literacy skills are a big issue. These run across a level of programs that you need in order to help youth in urban areas.
I did not have the quote on the world's youth population by the way, just that the world's population is about 70 per cent urbanized at this stage. In order to help youth, they need to be culturally grounded. In order to support their education, which is their best case for success, it usually is not just providing an education program. It is providing a series of services that they can fall back on. Youth support centres are also helpful. Mentorship and connection between elders and youth in communities is important and a way they can stay connected with their culture.
Senator Dyck: For clarification on the number that I quoted, I thought you had said it, but I guess I heard it on the news yesterday. They were talking about the world population and how a very large percentage is under the age of 25. Of course, I made the link with the Aboriginal population because they are pretty much the same.
Senator Patterson: Mr. Cyr, you mentioned that funding had been frozen to friendship centres, and I think you referred to the 1980s. Can you give me a little more detail on that?
Mr. Cyr: I was not working in the field then, by the way. As far as I recall the history of how it happened, the migrating Native People's Program changed its name and structure sometime in the early 1980s. At that point in time, the funding was reduced to the level we have now, and it has been frozen since that point. We referred to 1996 because that is when it was transferred to the National Association of Friendship Centres to actually manage and self- determine, self-govern the program. That part is extremely successful. The problem is that we have seen exponential growth in population numbers with the same sort of basic level of funding provided.
We have one the lowest levels of executive director pay in the country. I think the average is $52,000. A friendship centre, as we see it, takes core funding of around $230,000 to run, and it is funded on the average of about $131,000 now. That is what the situation looks like. There is no cost of living increase built into that. We rely more and more on these centres because the social problems and social issues that emerge are not going down but going up, because the population is growing and getting younger. We are doing more with less.
Kudos to my colleagues who work in friendship centres across the country, the 119 of them. They work extremely hard and extremely long hours, with very little, to get a lot done, and they are very good at it. I hope that answers your question.
Senator Patterson: Are you telling me that, since 1996, the funding has been frozen?
Mr. Cyr: Yes.
Senator Patterson: I take it you, being the director of the national association, would be liaising with the federal interlocutor, who is the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs?
Mr. Cyr: Yes.
Senator Patterson: Do you talk to them about this issue of the funding freeze? Can you tell me what the department is saying about that? You said that the friendship centres are very effective at leveraging the money they get with provinces and municipalities. Does the Department of Aboriginal Affairs know the federal contribution is inadequate? I am sure they do. Are they expecting that their contribution will be matched or augmented by provinces or municipalities? What is their approach when you address this? Being frozen, without even inflationary increases, is actually a steady reduction. What do they say? What does the department tell you?
Mr. Cyr: The first thing I need to clarify is that our funding comes from the Department of Canadian Heritage, under the Aboriginal Peoples Program, and it has for a number of years.
Senator Patterson: I am sorry, I misunderstood.
Mr. Cyr: I did not make it clear in my opening comments. My primary mandate is to increase that core funding because that is the basis against which everything else is leveraged. The organization has made overtures to the federal government consistently over the years. About two or three years ago, a business case was developed, with some funding help from the Department of Canadian Heritage. Essentially, the business case states the numbers I just stated to you. We are looking for a $10 million to $15 million increase in core funding. The response from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs has pretty much been silence.
They have not approached cabinet to increase the funding as far as I am aware. One of the reasons we have an All Party Friendship Centre Caucus is to try to bring this to everyone's attention so that it can be brought forward.
I believe it is the best way of addressing the social issues of urban Aboriginal people. It is existing and organic, was created by Aboriginal people and is governed by volunteer boards of directors — one of which I was before I took this job — who spend a lot of time trying to help our people. It is successful at dealing with people, and it could be a great deal more successful. Why does it not resonate? I do not know if I can answer that question. We continue to push the issue at every meeting, and this is our main task at the moment.
In the meantime, though, we have a variety of other interactions with the federal government, on a bunch of issues, because it is the only existing national network in urban centres to get out to Aboriginal people. When we participated in the H1N1 campaign, it was an extremely successful campaign of information, education and the distribution of material. The federal government helped build this network. The provincial governments have disparately engaged a number of times. They have an extremely good relationship with us in Ontario, Manitoba and, increasingly, in Quebec. It is coming along in Alberta, Saskatchewan and in different provincial governments in the eastern part of Canada, but a lot of those organizations do not have the capacity that we do to engage the government. They are busy providing services to people. The government is not explicit about wanting to see a provincial, matching contribution. That would be okay. I do not think we would have an issue with that.
In some provinces, like Ontario and British Columbia, the provincial government funds more than the federal government, 63 per cent in Ontario and 62-ish in British Columbia. In some provinces in the Prairies, they fund less, about 40 or 45 per cent, and funding is based on specific service components. What is really required is the centralized funding to have the organization healthy at its core.
Conrad Saulis, Policy Director, National Association of Friendship Centres: I joined the National Association of Friendship Centres back in April of 2009 when our business case was in the midst of being developed. At that time, we were also in the middle of planning a national day of meeting with as many members of Parliament and senators as we could. We had organized it to happen in November of that year, and we did have it then. We presented our business case to over 70 MPs and senators on that day.
That is two years ago this month. As Mr. Cyr said, it does not resonate for some reason, and it is really disappointing to do that kind of work and put in that kind of energy and effort. We brought together the presidents and executive directors of our provincial and territorial associations to bring this message to the members of Parliament. Actually, a big part of my work with the NAFC focuses on trying to impress upon the funders — Heritage Canada and the other folks — the pressing need our friendship centres have. Mr. Cyr talks about the level of salary that our executive directors make. It really weighs on them to try to find the additional capacity that they need.
I just wanted to bring up the focus and the energy that we put towards this.
Senator Ataullahjan: I was amazed to hear that the funding had been frozen for 15 years, effectively. I am sure you asked for an increase. What reason are you given for there not to be any increase in the funding?
Also, you mentioned that you do international work. Can you tell me about the international work you do?
Mr. Cyr: I will try to answer the first question. I think I kind of gave the answer already. It has met with a lot of silence. As a former bureaucrat within the Canadian government, I understand what it takes to increase program expenditures — going to cabinet and Treasury Board — and the work that needs to go on. In my analysis, that work has not happened. It has not resonated with the energy within the system to actually push it forward. Although this business case was funded by the federal government, it does not resonate after the fact. That being said, we continue to advocate for it.
The international work is something that has emerged over the last five years. There is no other movement in the world like friendship centres, this organic, self-determined, self-government by Aboriginal people in urban centres. As the urbanization trend increases around the world, there is a growing need for expertise on how exactly this works in urban centres. We get called on, by our indigenous brothers and sisters around the world, to come and talk about that experience, the way it worked and how it is organized and structured because they see the same social issues. Things are very comparable in Australia and New Zealand. I was recently invited to China, by the Chinese government, to talk about migration. It was an interesting experience because they have 125 million indigenous people. They migrate an extreme amount within China, mostly forced migration for work purposes. The Chinese government wants to learn how exactly services were provided that supported indigenous people, especially in culture preservation. We are also engaged at the United Nations with the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. It depends on the issue at the Human Rights Council. We also have ECOSOC status at the UN.
It is issue-driven for us. The World Urban Forum will be held in Naples in September 2012. We were at the last World Urban Forum. This time we are in the process of partnering with the Government of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. From the national association, I will lead an organization of indigenous groups from those four countries to look at best practices and Aboriginal participation in the economy, not economic development; it is participation of Aboriginal people in the economy, writ large, throughout the spectrum of activities. We are recognized by the Government of Canada in terms of our expertise in the service and work we do. There is a plethora of departments that want that expertise, but there is still this core issue that we are dealing with. I hate to always return to that, but it is there.
Currently, I am working on an international strategy for the organization. We have limited time and resources to do this because international work is not funded well. The work is to engage internationally and how that impacts our domestic agenda as well. It has to go back to friendship centres on the ground and what is relevant for them.
Senator Meredith: If you are already short on resources here, who funds the international work? Clearly there is a major cost to having staff. Do the international invitees pick up the cost for you to go and lend your expertise?
Mr. Cyr: It usually is done that way. In this case, the Chinese government provided the funding. My president will be down in Argentina in a couple of weeks, having been invited by the Argentinean Ministry of Education to present at a couple of conferences. They are funding the trip. Other than that, I have to take it out of my administrative costs, but it is not much. When I am partnered with the Government of Canada, it provides funding, but it is very narrow and does not happen often.
Senator Campbell: I apologize for my lateness. I am starting to realize what the term ``minority'' is.
Do you operate the friendship centre in Vancouver on Hastings Street?
Mr. Cyr: The local friendship centre has its own governing board.
Senator Campbell: It comes under the NAFC.
Mr. Cyr: Yes.
Senator Campbell: It is an amazing place and probably the most used community centre in the City of Vancouver. I do not know how many times I have shot hoops there and I have met with elders and drummed. It is in use literally around the clock; it is quite amazing.
At one point in 2004, an agreement was signed between the federal, provincial and municipal governments to build a youth Aboriginal friendship centre in Vancouver. Were you involved in that?
Mr. Cyr: No. I do not recall it.
Senator Campbell: It came to a sudden screeching halt for a variety of reasons and I wondered what happened.
It is interesting that the friendship centres are able to leverage their money more than probably anyone else I have ever seen. I have never seen a buck go as far as it does at one of those centres. We tend to make all of this a federal responsibility but is there recognition by cities that Aboriginal peoples are their responsibility too? For instance, in Vancouver, you see more activity by the municipality and the province.
Do you think it is fair to say that there is recognition that responsibility for urban Aboriginals is municipal, provincial and federal?
Mr. Cyr: Absolutely. It is increasingly recognized by all levels of government. I think it is forced by necessity, for example when you have 85,000 Aboriginal people in Winnipeg. Let us be honest: We fit at the bottom of the social scale on almost every indicator. Consider the number of Aboriginal people in the prison systems, the child welfare system, and the extreme overrepresentation on provincial and municipal services. It is pretty blatant that this issue is shared by everyone.
Ontario and British Columbia stand out as engaging — kudos to the efforts of my colleagues in those provincial and territorial associations who have engaged significantly with them. However, it has taken time to get there. Increasingly, municipalities are coming along; 119 municipalities of them have friendship centres. The friendship centre in Prince George owns 13 pieces of property in the core area; so it is hard to do anything without them in that city. In some cities, such as Lynn Lake, Manitoba, it is the only game in town. The municipality is connected intimately with the friendship centre, which is the biggest employer in that remote community.
Over the years, we have seen provincial governments come along at different times, when jurisdictional issues are put aside and we are dealing with social issues on the ground in urban centres.
Senator Campbell: What is your relationship with the five organizations recognized by the Government of Canada as national: the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Native Women's Association of Canada? What is your relationship? Do you receive any support in funding from these organizations that represent a portion of First Nations but, unlike you, not all of them?
Mr. Cyr: I will add some points of clarity to that. The friendship centres do not represent individuals on a political level. We represent the issues of our membership, the friendship centres and the movement they serve. That being said, we have an extremely good relationship with the majority of national organizations. We have a memorandum of understanding with the AFN. We are working on a more detailed one on how we will work together. We have a very close working relationship with the Métis National Council, especially at the provincial level in Manitoba and Alberta, where they have signed agreements.
We have a very good working relationship with NWAC. We cross support each other on issues as required. With ITK, we do not interact as much because that population base is not so strong that we need to do so. If we needed to, we would interact more because it is not that I do not know them and do not have relationships with them. We do not interact with the Congress of Aboriginal People at this time.
Senator Campbell: Do you know who they are?
Mr. Cyr: Yes, of course.
Senator Meredith: In your presentation, you mentioned employment opportunities created through your friendship centres and that 76 per cent are women. What about the men? Are they not applying because the roles created are geared more towards women? I understand the mandate of your friendship centres and so forth in terms of reaching out to those young men who are more prone to violence or getting into various negative behaviour. I have worked with youth over the last ten years through our centres we are starting to create in the GTA. It is all about opportunities for these young men to be able to find their way. What are you doing around that in terms of internally creating those opportunities? As a businessman, I also believe in creating those entrepreneurial skills — these young men are talented — in terms of just economics for them. As I said, I have always made the statement that the best social program is a job.
Mr. Cyr: I agree. There is a two-part question there. The first part is, analytically, why are there more women than men employed in the friendship centre movement? I do not know off the top of my head. It is probably just the nature of what has occurred as it evolved over time. That does not mean there is not a very large young male population engaged in friendship centres and their programming, because there is. I used to sit on the board and work with them. My children would go to the friendship centre and participate, and I have two boys and one girl.
It varies by province. They create programs for young people, men as well as women. Sometimes they will make it distinctive to young men versus young women. It depends on the nature of it. I think there are 1,700 programs running. There are just so many programs going on across the country that I could not specifically name, but there are employment and skills development programs. There have been entrepreneurial and business mentorship programs. I do not know if Mr. Saulis can pinpoint specific examples at this stage, but there are opportunities in which they engage. We would like to see ourselves more engaged in the ASETS program, the HRSDC Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy, which used to be called the AHRDS program. The friendship centres have largely been left out except for in Ontario and a trial project in B.C. and in Halifax, which are more recent in nature, but for some reason we cannot seem to break that cycle of where the ASETS program is focused.
If you go to friendship centres, as your colleagues have, and some of you have probably gone in your own area, you will go in there and see these as what I like to call engines of social change. There is a whole bunch of young people and older people meeting in these centres. They come up with ideas and spin off businesses all the time. They have done at least four or five here through Odawa in Ottawa. We have a long history of spinning off business enterprises done by Aboriginal people. A lot of our leaders have come up through friendship centres, leaders on the First Nations and Metis side. This is where they cut their teeth, so to speak, interacting with the community and getting that experience. There are lots of programs. I am sorry that I cannot name any off the top of my head, but it varies on the capacity of the provincial governments to engage, because some of these are provincial programs.
Mr. Saulis: With regard to the male and female dynamics, one of the realities that was noticed as well is, demographically, in the urban population, there is a higher female urban population. I would not say that is a factor as to why 72 per cent of the employees in the friendship centre movement are women. I think there are also other realities for young Aboriginal males that put them into positions or situations of being probably the highest at risk of youth in the country, for a number of reasons and varieties of family and things like that.
I think the efforts being made by friendship centres through alternative high schools and the literacy programs that we offer throughout the friendship centre movement are ways of trying to improvement the life chances of youth and wanting to provide them with those fundamentals. Once you have your literacy skills, of course, then you are able to be trainable. That is what we need to do. We need to be able to bring our youth population to the level of being able to be trainable so that, when they pick up the manual of how to operate whatever it is, a machine or even a computer, they will understand what it is that is in front of them. Those are some of the basic realities of life that we know with a lot of our urban Aboriginal youth population. We definitely want to bring them up to the level of being able to either be a successful employee or themselves to look at venturing off into their own economic opportunity, if they were able to be it.
Poverty amongst the urban Aboriginal people, which we have not even talked about, Mr. Cyr or I, is another reality. Many of our families are single-parent-led, either women or men, and they do it as best as they can. Personally, I think it is probably even 3 million hits a year in terms of services that friendship centres provide, and we are looking at a population of about 633,000 people based on the 2006 census. That is a lot of services being provided by only 119 or 117 friendship centres. Meeting the needs of the urban population is tremendous.
I think that all of the friendship centres really have the youth forefront in their minds. They want to create something positive in the future for them, and not just the youth themselves but the children. For them, the Aboriginal Head Start program and other early childhood programs are things that they endear tremendously. Those also improve the life chances of those children. As they become older, they become more successful in school. They will stay in school. We have a high dropout rate, as everyone knows. That is why the alternative schools then become very important and integral. I do not want to belabour everything, but there is a lot of work.
Mr. Cyr: To add one thing in terms of youth within the movement, it places a very high priority on youth engagement at an internal political and structural level. I have a youth on my board who is an executive member of the board. We also have a youth council who meets and they go through their own issues. They provide advice to us as a centre as well and give that youth perspective. The majority if not all of the friendship centres have a youth representative on their board. I think all of them do. As a member of the board of directors, they have voting rights and privileges. They are significantly engaged every step of the way. That is part of the training of youth too, because when we leave the movement, the youth will come up to lead it. They will be trained. If I have an opportunity to meet with deputy ministers or ministers, we bring youth with us. We recently had the opportunity to send one to the International Peace Day at the UN, and they had the opportunity to speak to Michael Douglas and ask questions and be engaged. We try to train them in the activities we do along the way. They can take that back.
They are also involved in the Cultural Connections for Aboriginal Youth Program, where they actually choose the proposals. The youth make decisions about which ones go forward affecting youth. There is a high premium placed on that sort of engagement within our organization.
Senator Meredith: I commend you for that, because what is lacking in a lot of organizations is the mentorship of your youth, and you are gearing your services toward youth and engaging them in the decision-making. I commend you for that, given the fact that 48 per cent of them are under 25, within your demographics.
One of the quick questions I have for you is about partnerships. I believe in partnerships. With our faith lines work in Toronto, we believe in partners. We are given a small amount of funds, and we try to leverage that as much as we can to squeeze ten out of one. I know what it is like to balance things. Are you partnering with any other organizations to help to deliver your services, to really effectively reach out to the community as these young people and their families assimilate into the urban centres?
Mr. Cyr: The short answer is yes. It varies province by province, friendship centre by friendship centre. In some communities, there is an extreme number of partnerships going on to deliver things, whether it is with school boards or health authorities.
Senator Meredith: Do they include Salvation Army or United Way?
Mr. Cyr: Absolutely. There are partnerships along the way. They vary. Even some of the banks will engage with us and support us. Royal Bank has a backpack program through our friendship centres for kids going back to school. These partnerships emerge, and they are based on our ability to engage the rest of the volunteer, non-profit government or private sector. How much energy and time Mr. Saulis and I have to engage is really the question on the level of partnership that emerges.
There are many entrees to us. Many times, like this committee, we have to go out and explain what we do and who we are, and that is part of our job. Partnerships may be the key. The interesting thing is that I see this coming more from the federal government these days. As funding gets cut back, and we are in a budgetary cut-back phase within the federal government now, they are coming to us to partner to deliver things. Victim services for Corrections Canada, for example, want more Aboriginal people to engage. You have to reach out to them to get them to engage. There has not been a great history between Aboriginal people and the correctional services of this country. It will take time to get over that, although there are some valuable services there.
Part of it is that we see an engagement across government expanding, as an expanded partnership. There are then private and non-profit partnerships as well that are emerging. Sometimes it gets down to the ground level within that friendship centre, within Edmonton or wherever the community is; that is where it emerges from.
Senator Raine: I know the good work that the friendship centres do all across the country. Are there friendship centres in every province of Canada?
Mr. Saulis: The only province where there is not one is Prince Edward Island. Otherwise, there is one everywhere, including the territories, and that includes Nunavut.
Senator Raine: Do the people who use the services of the friendship centre have to join? Do they register?
Mr. Cyr: No.
Senator Raine: Do you track where they are? If we wanted to send a message to everyone that you serve, is there a way to reach them all or is it just more individual friendship centres knowing who they serve?
Mr. Cyr: No, they do not have to register. You can be a member of a friendship centre, a paid membership. They have membership, those organizations with voting rights and that sort of thing. Usually it is $10, a pretty minimal cost, but by and large the clientele, to make a distinction, is not required to be a member. We also do not track the statistics. In a restorative justice program or Aboriginal Head Start program, you will not track the data — homelessness, for example. Through each friendship centre, you could reach them in a general broadcast way. That does not mean you will get everyone, but you can reach many of them.
Senator Raine: The statistics that you give are from whom?
Mr. Cyr: The people at the front or the people running the programs keep statistics. The world is driven by statistics these days. They keep statistics on who they serve, but not necessarily their names because that would be confidential.
Senator Raine: Is it fair to say that many of the clientele who use the services are not interested in the political side of the organization?
Mr. Cyr: Yes, that is true.
Mr. Saulis: They are focused on putting a meal on the table for either themselves or their kids or what will happen tomorrow.
Mr. Cyr: It is getting kids to school, those sorts of things.
Mr. Saulis: They are very basic daily life realities.
Senator Raine: The absolute total value of the organization is that it is there to serve.
Having said that, I do not understand what the role of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples is, which purports to represent urban Aboriginal people. I would like to hear your take on that.
Mr. Cyr: I do not think it is my position to comment on the role of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. We are a professional service delivery organization based on the needs of Aboriginal people in urban communities. We do not purport to do political representation. The people within our organization have their political representation whether it is through the Métis National Council, the ITK, the Assembly of First Nations, and of course their regional bodies of each of those. It is up to them on an individual level to deal with their representation. We do not.
Senator Raine: I have a completely different question. We are now studying education K to 12 on reserves. We know that many students on the reserves go to the nearby cities for high school. You mentioned the support that your organization gives and you mentioned some housing support. Have you a best-case scenario for housing youth who come into the cities to go to school?
Mr. Cyr: I mentioned the lack of housing support. I am trying to think of a best-case scenario in which this is going on at the moment, where a friendship centre actually controls or has been responsible for providing housing opportunities and I cannot think of one.
Mr. Saulis: Like with anything, housing is geared to what the priorities of either the municipality or the provincial government would be. In many cases, housing would centre around either family violence-related situations or other things not necessarily geared toward either students or youth. That opens up the whole lack of focus that all governments seem to have toward youth. There is a large focus on early childhood. I worked at the Aboriginal Head Start program at Health Canada for 10 years and I love that program, but once youth become a certain age, everyone seems to forget about them. What we are able to respond to is what funds are available and for what purposes. Funds are always attached with Ts and Cs and you cannot start using funds for non-Ts and Cs because you get into trouble, but the reality is that you use the funds available for the purposes they are intended and identified to be used for. There are gaps in terms of being able to provide housing for students that come to urban areas. I am glad you brought it up, because no one is talking about it or identifying it as an issue. At the same time, it is not something that anyone seems to want to address.
Mr. Cyr: Friendship centres often act as referral points. They know what is in the community and what is available, although they do not run housing. As far as I know, no one does. There are 119 friendship centres and there may be some who do, but I do not think it is a lot. However, they know where the housing is, for example, so they may be able to refer people if there is any. The federal government got out of the game of housing a long time ago.
Senator Raine: For young students in the 14 to 16 age group, if their family is going to send them to the city to go to high school they would want them to live with a family and they would want that to be vetted somehow.
Mr. Saulis: Probably they would live with family if they moved to an urban area, but if a youth is going to go to high school off the reserve, or off of a Metis or an Inuit community, I do not know if that is so much of the situation as it is for post-secondary, because most First Nation communities would have their children going to school either on the reserve, if the school is on the reserve, or in an adjacent community but still able to live at home.
It would be very unusual for people to send their children to school off the reserve to an urban area at that age to complete high school.
Senator Raine: The alternative high schools that you spoke of are schools that are serving the urban Aboriginal youth?
Mr. Cyr: They are primarily in Ontario. Ontario has a program by which they have alternative Aboriginal high schools. Odawa here in Ottawa runs one. It is a culturally friendly and specific environment in which to have high school. The good thing is that within the friendship centre environment, they connect to the youth programming, the employment programming, the educational and the colleges and universities.
Senator Raine: There is a tremendous synergy because of the friendship centres.
Mr. Cyr: Friendship centres often do — I guess the expression is cradle-to-grave — services. There are prenatal classes and parenting courses leading to healthy babies and healthy living, head start programs and up through the wholes spectrum of services where they are able to do that. Although to be honest, there is very little funding for elder programming within friendship centres. That is one of the issues that we have noticed needs to have more focus, especially given that aspects of our population are aging.
Senator Demers: Good morning and thank you for making us more aware of the problem. In the introduction, Mr. Cyr mentioned literacy, as did Mr. Saulis. You also mentioned that 48 per cent of the population is 25 years and under. You are doing a lot of good work, but these kids do not get the right education. We all know where much of that comes from, with violence in the home and parents who have separated or divorced. Where does that priority stand? Every time I come to meetings of this committee, they always seem to be so focused on literacy, which is a very big problem. Is that a top priority for you? When you do not have the funding, it becomes even more difficult to help those young kids.
Mr. Cyr: We have had a two-year initiative with the government to develop literacy. Mr. Saulis runs it for us and can speak directly to it. It is limited and small compared to the size of the issue. We are engaged in developing literacy handbooks and training components for the trainer to try to alleviate some of the literacy issues. However, it is time limited. We have a one-year or two-year contribution from the federal government to work on issues of literacy. As far as I know, literacy does not resonate as much as it used to within certain aspects of the department, which I believe is HRSDC.
Mr. Saulis: We are getting funding through HRSDC on the literacy project. There are strong literacy programs in Ontario and B.C. funded by those provincial governments. The friendship centres there are thoroughly engaged in providing a full range of literacy programs and support to youth, predominantly.
I could not agree with you more, Senator Demers, in terms of the need for a strong focus on literacy because it is fundamental, as I explained to Senator Meredith. We must have that first level of help and support to improve people's ability to read so they can understand the instruction manual going forward. The worst thing we could do to our youth is not help them to open the first door. Success in that is necessary in order to open the rest of the doors to post- secondary education at college or university or to apprenticeship programs.
A big part of this is literacy, absolutely. Many friendship centres know that but, as Mr. Cyr said, unfortunately it is not ``wealthily'' funded, whether that is a word or not. Friendship centres are meeting on and continuing to address literacy because it is a key to future success and getting people out of situations and moving forward. We know that is where our youth want to go. They do not want to live on the streets or hang out with gangs and engage in other nefarious parts of life. They would rather be moving on and establishing a positive future for themselves. As Mr. Cyr said, they are our future.
I have met a number of people working at the friendship centre who were first there as children. They stayed in the friendship centre movement because it was so important and meaningful to them, either in an educational way but probably more so in a cultural way. We have not even started to talk about the cultural part of the friendship centre programming and how meaningful that is to First Nations and to Metis. We had a short conversation about providing services to Metis and First Nations people. Friendship centres support the cultural side, whether through a pow-wow, traditional Metis gathering or other things. They are very supportive of culture and language, which are both very important. Our languages are dying off. My language is Maliseet. One of your senators is my first cousin. She knows that the language is dying off. It is a formidable thing to know and to see happen.
Senator Patterson: I believe there is only one friendship centre serving Inuit in Canada, although you can correct me if I am wrong. It is in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. I asked about the funding freeze because it was hitting them very hard when I last met with them. Could you give me an idea of how that centre is doing?
Mr. Cyr: By and large, the centres in the North struggle because, as you know, the cost of doing business in the North is that much higher. I do not think that the territorial government is as engaged in support, as of yet. The friendship centre is new to them, so engaging is a bit difficult. However, they have an incredibly refreshing perspective. They sit on my board representing the regions and bring a very refreshing perspective in terms of the issues facing people in the North.
At our annual general meeting, which was in Winnipeg this year, I was approached by several people from the North and by someone who works with the ITK, who said they want to open more friendship centres in Nunavut and wanted to know how to do that. The NAFC has a structure and a list of criteria to be met in community engagement. It is really the community that needs to determine whether they want a friendship centre and to support it because it is largely run by volunteers. However, there is strong interest in the North and in the central part of Newfoundland and Labrador to open a third friendship centre in the more remote interior. They want to be part of a movement that brings people together to deal with issues in a common way, share with each other best practices and have a kinship community across the country dealing with similar issues. We learn from each other a lot. They may do something in Alberta that is useful in Quebec, et cetera. There is interest; it is a matter of us and them trying to pursue the interest.
There is no extra funding for new friendship centres. If someone else comes in, there is no core funding. Three friendship centres exist without the $16 million core funding because they have come on in recent years. We keep trying to apply for more funding but it is not happening.
Senator Meredith: You talked about several organizations that deal with First Nations people. Have the leadership, including the band leaders, been supportive of the friendship centres?
You talked about education and, as Senator Demers said, we are doing a study on education of First Nations people and the challenges around that. You said that you do not track the individuals who come to the friendship centres. In the centres with which I am involved we track those individuals because we want them to be successful. We follow up in order that they do not fall through the cracks.
I would encourage you to look into that in terms of a holistic approach. I know that it is a resource issue and that you are grossly underfunded. However, I believe that there is greater potential of success in that way, rather than having clients repeat programming. I encourage you to do that.
Has there been any resistance from the leadership to the work you are doing around literacy and education and moving your organization forward to positively impact the lives of these people?
Mr. Cyr: There has been no resistance whatsoever. I have met with the national chief and grand chiefs around the country, as has my president, on numerous occasions. We are all focused on getting the best educational outcomes for Aboriginal people, urban or not. Many times the issues are very interconnected due to movement from reserve to urban and back to reserve. Many times issues that exist in urban areas, such as gangs, come back to the rural or reserve areas. We understand that we are dealing with the same set of issues. There has been no resistance on that front. There has been no resistance on the Metis side either. We have extremely good working relationships.
We are a service delivery organization, so there is no political friction in that sense. We can do more to work together, but that is a matter of the capacity of all of us to do more. Education is under-resourced anyways, so it is a matter of us all getting resources to work together and have common outcomes.
Senator Dyck: Mr. Cyr, you recommended that the committee study the urban Aboriginal environment. Could you expand on that and give us some general guidelines of what kinds of things we might focus on? You may consider sending us a written document on what you consider to be important, but perhaps you could give us some general ideas now on what we could focus on.
Mr. Cyr: I would love to put it in a written document. I think that is the best way to do it.
There is a series of complex issues in the urban environment. I would hope the committee would look at the context of Aboriginal people in an urban environment first. We have talked a lot about statistics and demographics at this table, and have to get into what that means, what we are doing.
We brought up good things about municipalities, provincial governments, federal programming and how this all works. My issue would be perhaps to look at an urban strategy for Aboriginal people writ large. There is a program within the federal government called the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. For whatever reason, it is fairly narrow both financially and on a policy basis. It is a good venue to take that initiative and talk about an urban strategy writ large for Aboriginal people.
I say that because many people still fall through the gaps in urban centres. There are not enough services or programs. There are many services being provided in big urban centres. There are probably 50 or 60 in Winnipeg. Friendship centres are sort of the core of the urban Aboriginal strategy issues, but we have a lot of service providers and partners in the community with whom we could work better. There is probably some overlap, although not a huge amount. We need to find out exactly where things are not being serviced well.
Potentially it is housing. Students may want to go to university in an urban centre but have nowhere to live, and their communities do not have the resources to provide for that. We need to look across the spectrum of issues in an urban environment and find the best places to do it.
British Columbia now has a cabinet committee on urban Aboriginal issues. That is a good place for us federally to work. It will look different in each province and region, so any strategy has to be flexible enough to take up provincial disparity.
I am probably not being specific enough for you yet, but we do need an overall strategy regarding Aboriginal youth, because the population will only grow in urban centres. We know that municipalities are already overtaxed in terms of infrastructure, as I am sure you have heard in other presentations. It is a question of finding one strategy that works that the federal government can use. We see ourselves as the key partner in whatever that is because we are already there and we are Aboriginal people running it for Aboriginal people. It is the best of both worlds and, technically, the federal government has already funded and helped to create it. We now have to take it to the next level.
Your committee could look at a set of both demographic and potentially jurisdictional issues and how services are interwoven for Aboriginal people, because you will find the most extreme social issues in the cities.
The Chair: Mr. Cyr, one thing that has always concerned me that I think has been lacking is mentorship. Senator Demers and others on this committee who have gained a considerable profile in the community could probably speak better to this than I can. However, as an Aboriginal Metis person from Manitoba, mentorship was critical in shaping my life. Is there a focus in your organization on developing mentorships so that the youth can be inspired, whether it be by sports, academics, military or other things? Have you worked on any specifics in that area?
Mr. Cyr: We do mentorship all the time. The friendship centre movement has a senate as well.
The Chair: Are you criticized?
Mr. Cyr: Well, I am not a senator.
The Chair: Are you appointed?
Mr. Cyr: In order to be in the senate you have to be nominated and you have to have worked at each level of the friendship centre movement; the local, provincial and national levels. That is the only way that you get to the senate.
The senate does mentorship of youth all the time. The problem with getting mentorship programs to engage comes down to resources. They do it at a local level all the time. There is a senator at every one of my meetings as well as a youth, and at every board level meeting, so there is already interaction happening.
We put together a couple of proposals to the government in the last year with an eye to having our elders more directly engaged with our youth to provide them with their many years of wisdom to assist in moving the issues forward.
We are ridiculously under-resourced to do that sort of work, to just bring people together. We do not have a specific program except a senate and youth council, and we have them meet. That sort of thing has been going on for 30 or 40 years.
The short answer to your question is that there is no specific mentorship program, but I take the advice.
The Chair: I see it written here with Senator Raine, Senator Demers and others on this committee who have been business leaders and what have you. The former Mayor of Vancouver is on my left. That is why I brought it up.
Thank you both for appearing this morning, for your presentation and for your excellent responses to senators' questions. We will take the information that we gleaned from your presentation and your responses seriously in determining our future work. As you know, we are in the throes of writing a report on kindergarten to grade 12 education at the reserve level.
(The committee continued in camera.)