Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2010

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much for your generosity.

My question is along the same lines.

In this case, are we not simply putting a lid on the problem? If I understand correctly, the Foundation takes a group approach, whereas now, an individual approach is being proposed. Whether we like it or not, the entire community was affected by what individual victims endured. If we view the problem solely from an individual standpoint and disregard the impact on the community, I think our efforts will be wasted. Under the circumstances, what steps can the Foundation take?

[Michael DeGagné]

You're absolutely right. I mean, these are community problems. These are problems that are affecting all the members of the community. That is why there's a certain danger in approaching things one person at a time or one family at a time. We have programs that deal just with suicide, or just with addiction, or just with healing. But at the same time, these things have to be integrated: they're the same people, the same families, and the same communities.

We also find that if we deal with things as a community, as a collective, we're helping in other areas. You can put all the money you want into economic development in aboriginal communities, but if people are not well or not able to use the money effectively, it will be wasted. We need to deal at a community level and at an individual level.

We talked about complementary activities through Health Canada and through the healing foundation. I think the community wins and that, ultimately, the kinds of things the government does improve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Deschamps and Mr. Lévesque.

We'll now go to Ms. Crowder for seven minutes.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for coming.

I also want to thank you for quite clearly explaining that this should not be an either/or situation. Health Canada has a role to play. It delivers some services to individuals. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation projects are community based and have a role to play.

As for why we're in the position of talking about an either/or situation, it really doesn't make any sense to many of us. Were you ever given any reasons for why the program was allowed to sunset, aside from the legal agreement that was in place?

[Michael DeGagné]

No. We haven't received a definitive answer. We've heard that we weren't present across the country in the way government services can be, which is quite correct. We also heard that it was never promised that the program would continue indefinitely, which is also quite correct. Aside from that, we haven't had a dialogue in which someone has said that this is the evaluation and this is what we found to be deficient.

I think the government has in fact been very respectful in terms of acknowledging the good work we've done. They haven't disparaged the work we've done as an excuse to end funding, but we haven't had a definitive answer yet.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I think it's a valid point. We haven't heard anybody say that the foundation and the projects that were funded were not good projects. We've fairly consistently heard that they were good projects.

I think there's a layered approach here. People have spoken to residential school survivors. I talked to one young man who told me that, first of all, he received treatment for drug and alcohol addictions. When that was finished, he went into trauma treatment. He was then going into another layer of treatment.

It was a healing fund project. There was a complexity in the treatment required, based on a community-based setting that seemed appropriate to the needs of the community and the individual. I'm not clear on whether or not he would have been able to access the same level of service on an individual basis. Is that your experience as well?

[Terry Goodtrack, Chief Financial Officer, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations]

Yes. That's our experience as well.

I can think of a number of projects that complement each other with Health Canada, especially the NNADAP program. People are referred to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation project within the community. In the event they have some of these addictions, they're asked to first go through the NNADAP program.

When they come to our program, they are free from those types of issues and able to grasp the programming we undertake in our projects, whether it's anger management and so forth. They need to have a clean bill of health from NNADAP to be able to move to our program.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

So it's a really good example of the kind of partnership that can exist between the Health Canada programs and the healing fund.

[Terry Goodtrack]

Yes, absolutely.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Are you aware if any analysis was done on the needs of individuals and their families and communities in this transition from closing down the healing fund projects to just being able to access Health Canada?

[Michael DeGagné]

No. I don't think there's been any analysis.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

You're not aware of anything.

[Michael DeGagné]

No. There hasn't been a lot of research.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Do you know how many healing fund projects have actually closed their doors now?

[Michael DeGagné]

It's 134.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

It's 134, and that means for some of them that the infrastructure that would have been in place to keep the doors open is gone.

[Michael DeGagné]

That's right.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

That experience would be hard to regroup in short order if funding should become available.

[Michael DeGagné]

Yes, it would be.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

In terms of not all communities being covered, we agree that not all communities were covered; it just wasn't possible with the funding that was available. Again, don't think that should be used as an argument to not keep funding the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. It just doesn't make sense.

I mean, if you have communities that were being serviced by AHF--recognizing that there are many other communities that are not--there wouldn't be a reason to use that as an argument for closing down, for sunsetting the program.

[Michael DeGagné]

No. In fact, it's the other side of the argument that I'm most concerned about.

The other side of it says that you can take the amount of money that we put in from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, that if you take $7 million off the top of that, you can now extend the service to every aboriginal survivor in Canada and their families, and if you can't deliver it in the community, you can provide transportation services to the nearest therapist. It's not possible with that amount of money.

It's a claim that Health Canada would be under an enormous amount of stress to live up to.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Do I have time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have about a minute and a half.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I guess I'm troubled by the thought that you can transport people out of their community for healing. The ongoing support that's required in a healing journey is difficult to do on an individual basis. In a lot of communities, some psychologists and psychiatrists fly in. We know that; there are fly-in psychologists.

But to take people out of their community to do a comprehensive healing journey doesn't make sense to me. They were already removed from their communities, or their families were removed from their communities. I don't understand that argument.

[Michael DeGagné]

Yes, our experience has been that the closer you can get to the family and the community, the better off you are, first in terms of access. These are difficult processes to go through.