RECONCILIATION WILL BENEFIT ALL ONTARIANS

INVESTING IN INDIGENOUS CENTRES OF HEALING, MENTAL HEALTH AND EMPLOYMENT WILL MEAN ALL CANADIANS CAN PROSPER, WRITES STEPHEN JACKSON

We reached out to members of Metroland's Community Advisory Councils, asking them to write about issues of importance during this provincial election. This is one of those columns.

As we head into the provincial election campaign, we feel it is a great time to highlight some issues that candidates and media should be addressing and covering in party platforms and news articles.

There are two million Indigenous peoples living in Canada with an estimate of 50,000 self-identified Indigenous people living in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and Guelph.

Indigenous people represent 50 per cent of our local homeless population, 50 to 75 per cent of our children in care across the country, and over 30 per cent of our prison population nationally, with women's prisons accounting for 50 per cent of Indigenous inmates. For Indigenous children in school, there is a 500 per cent higher dropout rate.

Simply put, this is the outcome of systemic discrimination and marginalization. The overrepresentation in these systems results in lifelong social supports. Children from Family and Children's Services progressively age into these other systems. We see a lack of healing, which includes poverty, addiction, and higher rates of food insecurity. There is massive system avoidance with police, education, health care and Family and Children's Services. There are hundreds of years of intergenerational trauma and many systemic barriers with business and education. For these reasons, at Anishnabeg Outreach, reconciliation is viewed through the lens of healing and economic independence that must be Indigenous-led if it is to be successful, and developed though partnership if there is any hope for reconciliatory success.

There is a dire need for mental health and employment supports with the removal of barriers. We know that people cannot work if they are not healed. Without healing, relationships can be toxic, family relations can be abusive, and employment is unstainable. With the aging population and baby boomer retirements we have large societal issues ahead of us and also an incredible opportunity to achieve reconciliation and ameliorate the impacts of intergenerational trauma and systemic discrimination against our first peoples.

Government and corporate policies talk about the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), yet overwhelmingly, we still see an underrepresentation of equity deserving groups in business. Companies and government are demonstrating an emerging desire for EDI. The real reason that we have not achieved equity and representation at all levels is because, as a society, we have not invested in building out the EDI talent pool.

From a political perspective we hope governments invest in centres of healing that could provide mental health and employment supports to the Indigenous community so that all Canadians can prosper.