April 26, 2007
“Protecting Our Gifts and Securing Our Future”
Speaking Notes for Assembly of First Nations National Chief at the Child Health Summit, Canadian Medical Association
Congress Centre, Ottawa, Hall A/B
· (Traditional Greeting)
· Thank you Billy [Two-Rivers] for offering the opening prayer earlier this morning.
· I wish to extend my appreciation to the Canadian Medical Association for inviting me to speak at this distinguished gathering.
· As well, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Dr Laura Arbour who advocated on behalf of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children’s interests as our appointed representative on the Child Health Summit Steering Committee. [Dr Arbour will NOT be in attendance]
· As National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, I represent the interests of more than 750,000 First Nations citizens and the 633 First Nations governments across Canada.
· The purpose of today’s event – to honour and advance the health and well-being of our children – is certainly a top priority of First Nations leaders and community members.
· First Nations share your commitment to ensuring that all children can reach their full potential, and thrive in all aspects of their being – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically and intellectually.
· Your proposed Child Health Charter, identifies three key components that must be offered to every child in order for our common goal to be met.
1. A Safe and Secure Environment
· The future prosperity of First Nations peoples in Canada is heavily dependent on how we care and nurture our children’s development today. This is especially true considering that more than half of our population is under 23 years old.
· Yet, despite the promise our children offer – not just for First Nations peoples, but for all of Canada – our children are victims of deplorable conditions, more commonly known in Third World countries.
· 1 in 4 First Nations children live in poverty compared to 1 in 6 Canadian children.
· Over one third of the homes in which our children live are overcrowded. In Pukatawagan First Nation in northern Manitoba, Chief Shirley Castel has reported that some two-bedroom homes have 28 people living in them; they are forced to sleep in shifts. Many adults go without any sleep to make sure their children are able to learn and play.
· And yet, many First Nations children are taken from their families and placed into care. And, while many Canadians assume this is because of physical and sexual abuse, the majority of the more than 27,000 First Nations children are removed from their homes because of poverty and its resulting impacts of neglect, housing and addictions.
· That number is three times higher than the number of children placed in Indian Residential Schools at the height of their operations.
· Imagine the level of displacement, of loneliness, of abuse, of loss of language and family structures. Imagine the fear and risks we are putting our children through.
· Consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, child welfare providers should not remove children from their homes due to poverty. Instead, impoverished families must be provided with the basic services and economic supports to safely care for their children at home.
2. Good Health and Development
· The high rate of overcrowding also has impacts on our children’s health and development. Asthma and allergies are the most common conditions experienced by First Nations children. Asthma among First Nations children and youth is almost double the Canadian rate.
· As reported in the recent report of the Standing Committee on Health, over half of First Nations children are either overweight or obese.
· These alarming health trends will continue as adults, and lead to higher rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
· The evidence is clear that children in homes with lower family income, overcrowding, poor nutrition do much worse in school, often repeating a grade.
· The evidence is also clear that children who do worse in school, with have less opportunity to become healthy and productive members of the labour force.
· Simply put, today’s income and education levels will have an impact on the future generations’ ability to reverse the cycle of poverty and dependence.
· Investing in First Nations children is a vital means to break the cycle of First Nations poverty, the most important social justice issue facing Canada today.
· It is also a key strategy to close the gap in health and well-being that has been well documented between First Nations and Canadians.
3. Full Range of Health Resources
· The third key component of your Charter – “A full range of resources available to all means” – has unique implications for First Nations children.
· This is also tied to the Charter’s important characterization of First Nations as “special populations in Canada”. I would like to thank the Canadian Medical Association for recognizing First Nations peoples as a unique population within Canada.
· Our uniqueness is rooted in our Constitutional rights and Treaties with Canada that provide the foundations for renewal of our relationship, founded on recognition and reconciliation.
· For far too long, these rights and Treaties have been ignored by Canada, and our history is littered with tragic social experiments where our children continue to suffer – whether this is demonstrated by the intergenerational impacts of residential schools that cause more suicides among our youth, or the over-representation of our children in child welfare.
· Healing and building a new way forward must be grounded in the self-determination and self-government of First Nations peoples.
· Harvard University, BC researchers of Chandler and Lalonde, and many other experts have found that greater First Nations control can lead to sustainable community development, cultural continuity, and resiliency among our children and youth.
· The solution is straight-forward: First Nations peoples are in the best position to make decisions affecting the lives of their children and families.
· But in order for First Nations governments to take full responsibility for the health and well-being of their children, they must be offered a fair share of Canada’s resources.
· At a minimum, resources should be equitable to those provided to provincial and territorial agencies.
· Unfortunately, while programs do exist, they are at risk from the strains imposed upon them by a 2% arbitrary funding cap on core Indian Affairs services for the last decade.
· The last 11 years of fiscal discrimination faced by all First Nations is causing our communities to reach the breaking point. The impact of the 2% cap on core programs and services at Indian Affairs has severely weakened our community services and infrastructure. We are fearful of the effect this is having on public safety in our communities.
· A cap of 2% growth per year hardly keeps pace with inflation and is certainly outstripped by our young and booming population.
· As a result of over ten years of such policies of restraint, First Nations child welfare agencies receive 22% less funding per child than provincial agencies. Indian and Northern Affairs has to reallocate from other essential services just to meet the 11% annual growth in maintenance costs for these agencies.
· Of course, this means there is no funding for prevention, no support available for poorer families to house, clothed, feed and educate their children.
· As each year passes our governments are forced to try and do more with less. This is a straightjacket on our governments. It hinders the proper growth and development of our children and our communities.
· Last February, I decided to take more forceful action in the face of continued inaction on the part of the government. I denounced the crisis in First Nations child welfare as a violation of the human rights of our children.
· This was not a spontaneous act drawn out of our random frustration. It was based on failure to negotiate a plan of action with the current government, and shelving of years of joint work and powerful evidence on what needs to be done.
· As a First Nation leader, I can tell you with certainty that we prefer negotiation to confrontation.
· However, it is important to add that the situation experienced in child welfare is also happening in social housing, education and health care.
· Specifically in health care, we struggle to maintain even a basic level of growth in our health budget such as received by provinces and territories. We do not have access to the same stable amount of resources, nor do we have resources we can invest in innovations to enhance the system, such as patient wait times, mental health and electronic health records.
· This constant insecurity is creating real patient safety risks for our people.
Conclusion
· Many of you in the health professional field already witness first hand the devastating effects of poverty on the health and development of children, including First Nations children.
· If I could leave you with only one message today, it is this: your support, and that of your colleagues, is essential to raising public awareness that these conditions are unacceptable and it needs to be addressed through urgent public policy measures.
· Over the past year, we have worked with the Canadian Pediatric Society to create a common vision for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children in Many Hands, One Dream.
· This Fall, we launched a national public awareness campaign to alleviate poverty among First Nations, and to gain support for our First Nations Plan for Creating Opportunity.
· An important piece of the campaign has been to denounce the lack of significant investment since tabling of the historic Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples report a decade ago.
· As well, we have been challenged with exposing this myth that $9 billion is current spent on First Nations. This figure is intended to deliberately mislead Canadians.
· In fact, a maximum of $5.4 billion is spent on First Nations – that is, only 60% of the amount reported by Minister Prentice. His department spends up to $600 million or 11% on overhead alone.
· Even more revealing is that the total budget of Indian and Northern Affairs represents only 0.004% of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product. And this proportion of First Nations funding compared to Canada’s economic growth just keeps shrinking.
· I welcome support of the Canadian Medical Association for our campaign and thank your President for attending our reception last November in honour of the 10-year anniversary reception of RCAP.
· I further encourage all individual members of the CMA to engage in our campaign by becoming more informed about the issues confronting our communities, and the solutions we have put forward to governments, corporate and other partners. Information and our on-line petition is available on our website.
· We are also hoping that organizations and members of the Canadian public will contact their MP’s and members of Cabinet to emphasize the need for Canada to take action now.
· We look forward to pursuing this work with the Canadian Medical Association and other new partners.
· We can begin to walk a new path together. We can look ahead seven generations and see healthy and happy First Nations children that are thriving in a peaceful and prosperous Canada.
· We owe it to our Nations and to Canada. And most of all, we owe it to our children.
· Meegwetch!
