Aboriginal people living off reserve not seeing benefits

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The 1997 Annual Report of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, published March 24, shows that the commission is unimpressed by the federal government's response to the needs of Aboriginal people living off-reserve.

"The plight of Aboriginal people living in urban areas has historically received little attention and was not addressed in the government response to the Royal Commission," said the commission in its report.

On the other hand, the report acknowledged the importance of both the federal government's Statement of Reconciliation and its Aboriginal action plan, Gathering Strength. By these two responses to RCAP, said the report, the federal government admitted "that past treatment of Aboriginal peoples was wrong . . . and committed itself to working with Aboriginal people to build a new and better future." Unfortunately, the report continued, the action plan "focuses primarily on the situation of on-reserve Status Indians." This is one way in which the federal response "lacks the detail and long-term objectives called for by the Royal Commission." The report also pointed out the following:

There is clear evidence that the social and economic situation of Aboriginal people in urban centres is often as bad as or worse than that of those living on reserves. However, governments at all levels have been unable or unwilling to deal effectively with their needs."

The commission reports that there may be several reasons why the problems of Aboriginal people living in urban centres have not been given priority. The first is possibly the argument that Canada, because of the current economic climate, must "go slow on change." This argument is described as follows:

Despite the Royal Commission's conclusion that an investment now will pay dividends later, many argued throughout 1997 that Canada's economic situation makes the RCAP strategy unaffordable.

Response to the Royal Commission's recommendations as a whole has been mixed, said Donna Balkan, manager of Media and External Relations for the commission, when she spoke to a Windspeaker reporter on April 20. Balkan suggested that, though the Human Rights Commission does not wish to single out particular persons or publications, many feel the federal government is not in a financial position to follow through on certain RCAP recommendations.

Balkan and the report itself counter such arguments over money by pointing out that there is also a very high cost for doing nothing. The economics of the RCAP strategy was the subject of a Council for Advancement of Native Development Officers (CANDO) conference in October. The conference decided that the "cost of doing nothing about the high unemployment and social problems of Aboriginal peoples is already too high and is increasing rapidly." RCAP's estimate was that in 1996 alone, "the costs associated with lost income and production and attempts to remedy social problems totalled $7.5 billion."

The numbers suggest that approximately half of this expense is the cost of not meeting the needs of Aboriginal people who are living off-reserve, since "nearly half of Canada's approximately 800,000 Aboriginal people live in towns or cities, and migration to urban areas is increasing rapidly."

Furthermore, read the report,

Without fundamental changes, these costs will grow year after year, as the Aboriginal population expands and more young people look for jobs in a workplace that offers them few opportunities.

In the report's opinion, there is another reason the RCAP recommendations have not been put into effect:

The federal government has generally disclaimed responsibility on the grounds that its jurisdiction extends only to reserves. On the other hand, the provinces have generally resisted assuming responsibility for what they see as a federal problem. While the governments argue, Aboriginal people suffer."

"A lot of things are not entirely clear, such as whose responsibility it is to address the needs of non-status, non-resere and Métis people, and that affects services and social programs," said Balkan.

According to the commission report, the plight of the Métis people has also been virtually ignored, for there is "the persistent lack of a clear government plan or policy to deal with the particular needs of the Métis."

For these reasons and others, the commission's annual report, though it calls itself "cautiously optimistic," also suggests the following:

It is not within our commission's purview to comment on which arm of government should assume direct responsibility for urban Aboriginal people, the Métis and non-status Indians. However, what we can say is that all governments should address this issue as a public policy priority of the first order. The cost of failing is simply too high.