First Nations contributions lacking, report says

Government has spent $2.2M on administration, $2.3 on funding

The federal government has spent almost as much administering a five-year-old program promoting the safety of aboriginal women and girls as it has on actual contributions to aboriginal communities, says a new internal report.

The $5.7-million Aboriginal Community Safety Development Contribution Program was part of the Conservative government’s highly touted response in 2010 to the problem of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

Its aim was to help First Nations identify root causes of violence, develop “community-driven” responses and implement “holistic, aboriginal healing models.”

So far, the government has spent $2.2 million just on administration, almost what it has spent on funding to aboriginal communities, $2.3-million.

“There appears to be considerable opportunity for greater efficiency,” the report said.

Further, only nine First Nations have developed community safety plans, even though workshops have been held in at least 25 of them, the report said, noting it has been a challenge to sustain community involvement and progress will likely remain “slow and incremental.”

The evaluation report, posted on Public Safety Canada’s website, comes amid calls from critics for the government to hold a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.

Last year, a report by the Royal Mounted Canadian Police found aboriginals accounted for 16 per cent of murdered women and girls, and 11 per cent of missing females in 1980-2012, even though they make up only four per cent of the population.

Public Safety Canada officials were not able to comment on the report Monday. However, the document stressed the government is committed to improving collaboration between departments serving aboriginals and creating more supporting materials to guide communities in developing safety plans.

In 2010, Ottawa announced it would invest $25 million over five years to address the high number of missing and murdered aboriginal women, of which $5.7 million would be made available to aboriginal communities to help them develop safety plans.

Government workers identified First Nations communities they believed could benefit from this approach, then began to hold workshops with their leaders to help them identify priorities.

Appearing before the Senate committee on aboriginal peoples in June 2013, Shawn Tupper, then an assistant deputy minister in Public Safety Canada, touted the success of the initiative in the isolated Eabametoong First Nation in northern Ontario.

Its leaders declared a state of emergency in October 2010 after a series of violent incidents since the beginning of the year, including three murders and 47 arsons.

“We are desperate for outside help,” Lewis Nate, then the band chief, said at the time.

With government support, the community was able to draft a proposed safety plan by February 2012, Tupper told the committee.

But the recent program evaluation found the cost of administration was high because there was some “trial and error” in the first few years related to workshops and the need for continuing support from program staff after they ended.

Many aboriginal communities are “accustomed to ‘being told what to do,’ so it represents a significant adaptation to get used to a community-driven process,” the report said.

Progress is “often followed by a period with no progress.”

While the initiative has helped empower aboriginal communities and motivate them to address safety issues, there have only been a “modest” number of workshops held and safety plans developed, the report said.

Training aboriginal facilitators, especially in high-risk communities, has been insufficient in some cases. And “there does not appear to be agreement about what constitutes a safe community and how that would be measured.”

A spokeswoman for the Assembly of First Nations was not able to provide comment by deadline.