Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 7 - Evidence, February 26, 2003
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 26, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:15 p.m. to study issues affecting urban Aboriginal youth in Canada and, in particular, to examine access, provision and delivery of services; policy and jurisdictional issues; employment and education; access to economic opportunities; youth participation and empowerment; and other related matters.
Senator Terry Stratton (Acting Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Acting Chairman: Good evening. This evening, we welcome Warren Crowchild, founder of the National Native Sports Program. Warren is from Alberta. It is good to see another westerner here. Please proceed with your presentation, and then we will follow with questions.
Mr. Warren Crowchild, Founder, National Native Sports Program: Thank you. I am from the Tsuu T'ina First Nation, just outside the southwest boundary of Calgary, Alberta. I thank the committee for inviting me to be here today. To me, being invited to speak to the Senate really brings home the magnitude of what I have tried to accomplish during the 11 years since I started this program in 1992 in order to get a broader voice with regard to issues surrounding our Aboriginal youth on reserves, in the urban settings, or in any walk of life where we find and deal with Aboriginal youth on a day-to-day basis.
In 1992, I started my program just by sitting down, like we are sitting here, taking a piece of paper and a pen and writing down ideas from my experiences as a hockey player and ideas that I could bring back and use to teach Aboriginal youth. It was not about focussing in on finding money to do it. I think the greatest thing about teaching Aboriginal youth is that I have been there. I come from an Indian reserve. I remember all the life skills I had to learn, adapting to being away from home and the segregation within the community from which I came. Allowing myself to get my schooling in an urban setting was key to getting me further and further on in life, not only with respect to education but also with life skills that I needed to help me further on down the line.
When I was a young boy, I wanted to be in the National Hockey League. That was my goal and my dream. I was like every other Canadian youth who wanted to play hockey on an outdoor rink in the minus 30 degrees weather and having the dream to pursue a sport that I loved, which was hockey.
That being said, what drove me to start what I did was the desire to enable Aboriginal youth to experience through my eyes what I had experienced. Not all of it was good. There were a lot of stumbling blocks, a lot of racism, and a lot of putdown of our culture. Those roadblocks were thrown not only on the ice but also off the ice. I have some great stories that I do not want to get into today, but those are the key components to why I started my program.
Please bear with me as I go along, because I do not have anything written down.
The greatest thing our program offers is teaching Aboriginal youth life skills away from the reserve and their family life. Hockey evolves from the minor league to the juniors and then to the pro hockey league. Many of these skills are not taught to Aboriginal youth. There is an ugly stereotype that Aboriginal players carry with them, even to the NHL level, of being a drunk Indian who misses curfews, who will be in a bar after-hours, who will not be in school and who will always be the fourth-line fighter. I am sure you have heard about the stereotype burden that many Aboriginal hockey players carry.
Our program goal is to overcome all of those obstacles. We are not saying that we have all the answers but we are able to bring ourselves to the level of the kids in our communities so that we can at least listen to them. I go to schools, community centres, Friendship Centres and even jails to visit kids and young offenders in Calgary. Many people do not want to listen and so they feel shut out. It is twice as hard for Aboriginal urban youth because they lose their culture and their identity.
How do we combat that? How do we address that issue? Many kids will identify their Aboriginal ancestry. How do we teach them about their culture? We bring in instructors to the NHL and to the junior ranks so that Aboriginal players of all ages can benefit. Mostly we listen, and try to understand what is happening so that we can try to help them.
Many urban Aboriginal youth are born in that setting, which is an advantage that they have over kids born on the reserve. That is because they learn to expand their horizons socially and physically through economic circles and schooling. That is a definite advantage. However, they lose their cultural identity because they are not living that cultural way of life.
Our program deals with many kids who have been raised by single parents or grandparents, and kids who are foster children because they have been given up for adoption. These kids always ask who they are, and where they come from, and they wonder what it is like to be native. We open our doors and try to teach them with stories and discussions about what it is to be Aboriginal.
A kid came to me from the young offenders centre in Calgary three years ago, and he wanted to be a hockey goalie. He was a phenomenally good-sized kid but he had the wrong direction because he grew up on the street and did not have a role model to follow. He had no guide at home or at school to help him with school, life in general and sports. I told this boy that I could help him after he did his time and that, after he talked to his parents, he could come to see me. About one week after he got out, he got himself in trouble again. He phoned me and he said, "You know, Warren, you told me to come see you and I never did. I am sorry, but this is what I have done. I got myself in trouble with the law. Now I am a young adult and I have to do the time for the crime.'' That bothers me because we have always tried to be there for every kid that we could.
When I was a young man, I saw much of the world because I played hockey in Europe during two separate trips. I played professional hockey for two years and so I learned a great deal about the real world. We see many youths who come from the reserve and their lives are confined to the walls of the reserve. How do you broaden their horizons? How do you bring them to understand that there is more to life than what they see around them this week and next week? How do you channel their aggression and their emotion in a positive way? How do you find and guide their will to learn and to be successful? That is one thing that we still learn in our program.
I do not know if my words today will help you in any way but they did come from my heart. I would be happy to answer your questions.
Senator Sibbeston: The topic is pretty important to our study because we have heard a great deal about the problems of youth in the urban centres. No one has ever talked about sports, which is an important facet of healthy development in youth. I would like to know more about your organization. What is it, and how many people are involved?
Mr. Crowchild: I founded the organization and I run it 365 days per year. I have a Web site and I will leave the address for committee members to take a look. The site covers every aspect of the organization and how I offer the program to youth. I can safely say that I am the only person directly involved in the organization, although I do have many associates with the NHL Diversity Task Force and with the NHL Players Association Goals and Dreams Fund. However, being affiliated with them does not mean that we have access to the money. We have support personnel during the summer for the hockey schools — the role players' program — that we offer to youth. That is sort of the basis of the National Native Sports Program.
We have an equipment bank for Aboriginal youth. We offer equipment to kids from single-income or low-income families. We have an application form on our Web page that kids can download. That is how most people make contact with me. We go into many First Nations communities in Canada and talk to youth in the schools and in the communities to tell them about what it takes if they want to take on the challenges of being a hockey player. This is what it takes. I firmly believe that these are the steps you must follow to be successful.
Senator Sibbeston: In the last month or so, at the junior world championships, we saw Jordin Tootoo, who is no doubt a great inspiration to young people, and in particular to Aboriginal young people. I am curious to know, amongst the First Nations people are there young players coming along in the system who may some day be a Jordin- type player; who might be an inspiration to other youth?
Mr. Crowchild: It is funny you should ask that question. I met Jordin Tootoo four years ago when he was a 16-year- old player with the Brandon Wheat Kings. At that time, I was visiting relations in Vancouver. I helped him stay in camp. His parents flew in from Rankin Inlet. They were having a tough time getting by. We stepped in and said, "We have some money that we saved from the hockey school in the summer. Let us help you out. Let us pay a week's motel costs for you and help you with that cost.'' In a sense, the National Native Sports Program is there to help Aboriginal youth in every facet, whether it is just talking to them or being at that game to answer questions that they might have.
There are some youths coming in behind Jordin. I was watching a hockey game on Tuesday night. There is another player who played for the San José Sharks, Jonathon Cheechoo. We have three Aboriginal players. The third is a young boy with the Saskatoon Blades, Wacey Rabbit.
What draws success to those players, in comparison to the other thousand junior players? The biggest difference is that they have taken themselves away from the reserve into a different setting, whether they have adopted themselves into another family or moved totally away from the reserve and the negative things that Aboriginal youth face in the summer months. People and hockey organizations tell them what they have to do. They must commit for 12 months of the year in order to be successful at this level. That is what I see in these three young gentlemen who are playing at major junior level.
How do we help that? How do we help more Aboriginal youth find that same path? Our problem is that we do not have access to the funding that filters to First Nations. Within the treaty zone of Alberta in which I live, the funding is not there, Perhaps it filters to the reserves, but not down to programs like mine. If the funding were available to help our program open more doors for these youth, you would see us being able to address more success stories.
Senator Sibbeston: I am curious to know your views on the state of sports amongst First Nations people, in particular. Do many First Nations have good athletic programs that can be an incentive, and developmental type programs for youth?
Mr. Crowchild: Honestly, yes, and no: Yes, in the sense that we have the North American Indigenous Games where we bring together all the First Nations to compete. Our challenge back to the Aboriginal people is how to get to meet at the national level, not only in hockey but also at every aspect of sports, including the Olympics, football, baseball, basketball or whatever sport is out there. I challenge any youth to get to that next level. We are not gaining in that regard.
I tied myself in with a championship in Cornwall, Ontario. I was part of it last year. Their first initial year was last April. The Aboriginal Sports Circle has taken strides in the right direction for hockey. Every province is allowed to bring the top 15 to 17-year-old native male and female teams to this championship.
I have always pushed them. They have asked me, "What can we do to bring this hockey program to a bigger and broader stage?'' I told them, "You push the right buttons and you get yourself involved with the Canadian Hockey Association.'' In that way, the CHA is recognizing their program at the same level as they would the Air Canada Cup, the Memorial Cup or any national program that has evolved from the CHA. I see that happening with the Aboriginal Sports Circle.
In the field of hockey, I see the progress. It will not happen overnight. It is slowly changing. However, knowing what I have done over the 11 years and what the Aboriginal Sports Circle is doing now, I give them two thumbs up in that capacity.
Senator Christensen: I would like to explore a little bit more about the National Native Sports Program. You say that you are the founder. Is there a facility? Do you have an office? Where do you keep your equipment? You say that you do not get much funding. What funding do you get?
Mr. Crowchild: The funding we get every year is minimal. I am from the Tsuu T'ina Nation. We have a facility there that can accommodate running a hockey school. I do have an office on the reserve. I have access to a fax, desk and computer where I can get information, but we do not have a set facility.
It is possible. I have always pushed the Diversity Task Force from the NHL and even the Goals and Dreams Fund. We do need a national facility. We do need something for this program. It has jumped leaps and bounds over the 11 years from where we started in 1992 to where we sit tonight. There is so much that has been accomplished, but how do you get that recognition? I am probably not the guy to say the right things or to push the right buttons in order to access that funding. The money is there, within the First Nations. It may be racism within our people. They do not channel the funds back to programs such as mine. I can talk to people until I am blue in the face about what the National Native Sports Program does, but I leave it to people to invite me to events, such as what I am doing here tonight. This has broadened our picture.
We do have a facility. The equipment is stored in my dad's basement. All of us eight kids moved out of his big house.
Senator Christensen: He has lots of room.
Mr. Crowchild: We have a full set of hockey equipment for 20 youth. We do not have money to purchase things through CCM or Cooper, or such places. We are there to help kids, but we do not have the money to help every kid.
Senator Christensen: You have the equipment, and you are running the hockey school where you live?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes.
Senator Christensen: That is the only hockey school that you are running unless you get invited to other places? Do you get invited by other sports organizations to help in hockey schools?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes, but not so much hockey schools. The hockey championship that they have in Cornwall, I was brought in as an evaluator. They have 7 provinces represented from across Canada in the tournament. I am a hockey scout for junior hockey. I evaluated the top 20 players to go to the national program in Thunder Bay.
You might want to knock on the door of the Aboriginal Sports Circle because they have the championship coming up at the end of April this year.
Senator Christensen: You call it the National Native Sports Program, However, it seems to be only hockey. Are there any other sports involved?
Mr. Crowchild: If the kids are not asking me about hockey, they are asking about rodeo. Rodeo is big with the Aboriginal people; so is basketball. We have a young girl who plays for the Saint Trojans in the ACAC in Alberta, and she had questions. How do I dot the i's and cross the t's for the life skills I need to be successful? On that question alone, I can adapt what I am teaching in hockey to other skills.
Senator Christensen: How do you get the kids to come to your hockey school? How do they find you if they do not have a computer or whatever?
Mr. Crowchild: A lot of it is just advertising, I guess — getting posters out, putting advertisements in the Windspeaker, or in the Alberta Native Sweetgrass. I was interviewed by CBC Northwest Territories three years ago and a lot of people found me through that channel. If you do a search on any web page and punch in my name, you will find me there. A lot of people click on it. I actually got a call from the Northwest Territories from a gentleman who was looking for a goalie school for his son, and I e-mailed him back with regard to the program we are running in May.
Senator Christensen: Are most of the kids who come to your school from urban areas, reserves or from all over?
Mr. Crowchild: They are from all over. I have kids from Quebec.
Senator Christensen: Do you have accommodation for them?
Mr. Crowchild: No. As with any other hockey school that you see, we leave that up to them. We strongly advise the youth to come with their parents. It is like a holiday setting for them to come to Calgary and be involved in a hockey school for a week. They take care of their own accommodation in the city. We run a day program, offering breakfast and lunch, but after the day is finished, the parents are there to take care of their youth.
When we first started in 1993, I believe, we had this great idea to set up tepees and house 80 kids in tepees. Well, that was a 24/7-week, because you have kids running all over the place. It was a great atmosphere. We brought in elders to talk to the kids about our native background. We had Jarome Aginla there, along with Sandy McCarthy, Norm Maracle, Gino Odjick and others.
There used to be another hockey school that did the same sort of thing in Lloydminster. It was called the Role Models Hockey School. I believe the head scout for the Vancouver Canucks, Ron Delorme, runs that program.
Senator Christensen: Have you gone out and looked at the private sector for funding — suppliers of equipment, some of the national hockey league teams, that sort of stuff?
Mr. Crowchild: When I first started, I sent a letter to every NHL club. I told them that I was not asking for anything; I just wanted them to know that the program is there and that this is what we are trying to do. A company that I am involved with called Graph is on our Web site, and they have given us a deal on custom fit skates, like they do to with the NHL players. They are a major supplier to professional hockey players, and they gave us a wholesale cost on purchasing skates for our youth. That helped a lot, because one year we must have purchased about 120 pairs from them. However, we still had to make that purchase and pay half of the cost.
I have knocked on every door. In 1998, I got some funding from the Ministry of Youth, Ms. Blondin-Andrew. I stretched that funding as far as I could go that year, and we still came in under budget. If you are running a hockey school, you are buying the food, the supplies, whether it is sweaters, T-shirts, tracksuits or whatever. You have to pay for the ice, accommodation for the instructors, instructor's fees. It does amount to dollars.
Senator Christensen: Is there a fee to come to your school?
Mr. Crowchild: There is a fee that we have to implement.
Senator Christensen: Where would a single mom get that kind of money?
Mr. Crowchild: On our web page, we have an option for a single mother with two kids to inquire through our program about how we can work out something for her two kids to attend — whether it is cost-sharing or paying 50 per cent. We offer that communication to people, to allow them to say, "I have two sons. I can only afford to pay for one.'' Because you have come to me with that concern, maybe we will let your two kids in for the price of one.
The program really tries not to turn a kid away. I have never turned one kid away in my life. If we have a single mom with three kids, and she can afford $100, then we will take those kids because we do not want to say no. The biggest thing that we do in our hockey school is make these kids feel important, make them feel like there is hope.
That is what I strive to teach in schools when I talk to youth. Yes, these are all the obstacles that you will face through the game of hockey — and I chose hockey because that is what I played — but you have to learn life skills away from the game. You are playing hockey for two hours in a day. What are you doing for the other 22 hours? Those are the skills that I want to teach. With the instructors that we bring in, we give them a pre-knowledge of what we are focussing on to teach the youth who are coming to the hockey school.
Senator Chaput: If I understand correctly, you teach life skills also to those kids through hockey. How many kids a year would you say that you can reach through what you are doing?
Mr. Crowchild: Taking a whole year — schools, hockey schools, lectures — I would estimate close to 2,500.
Senator Chaput: What age group would they be?
Mr. Crowchild: I have talked to kids in kindergarten. It is not so much saying, "This is what you are going to do.'' I have children myself and I have tried to be instrumental in raising my own sons. When I talk with kids in kindergarten, I do things like bringing the mascot from the Calgary Flames along, or showing them a hockey video and saying "This is what hockey is about. This is what N.H.L. players do. This is what you want to accomplish.'' I have to keep referring back to hockey because that is the basis of our program, but we have branched out into many fields.
I have talked with youth from kindergarten right up to grade 12, and I have taled to a couple colleges as well — the University of Lethbridge, Mont Royal College in Calgary, the Aboriginal centre in SAIT, the Southern Alberta Institue of Technology. Even our young adults have these questions that I hope I can answer, and if not, at least I can listen.
Senator Chaput: How many "hits'' or visits would you say you get on your Web site in a year?
Mr. Crowchild: I do not have that technology, although I know some Web sites are designed to record hits. However, a lot of people seem to find me through that web page and they want to bring me in to talk to their youth. If it is a classroom of 20 to 30, or only one kid, I will make time to do that.
Senator Chaput: You have never turned down one kid?
Mr. Crowchild: Never.
Senator Chaput: Has it been a success most of the time, what you have done with the kids?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes, I look at what I can do with what I started. If the funding was there to broaden our doors, I am sure we could help a lot more, even a bigger channel for our youth. That is why I have to go back to saying, with the Aboriginal Sports Circle, I think that is a good direction for sports. If I can network myself and be affiliated to the Aboriginal Sports Circle in that capacity with their program, it broadens the field, and creates more and more opportunities.
Over the years I have been doing this, even when I was a player, I heard a lot of people saying, "This is what we need to do. There are so many great hockey players, so how do we help them? But nothing was ever done. I kind of put my foot down and said, "We have to do something,'' In other words, even if you do not have the money, you have the dream.
Senator Chaput: What happens, then, to draw that dream if something happened to you? Are you preparing others to do that work?
Mr. Crowchild: That is another good question. Some of the players who have come through our doors have gone on to junior careers. I bring them back as instructors, to keep the focus on how I helped them as 13-year-olds, when now they are young men of 20 or so. Over those six or seven years, a legacy has been created for them to carry on, either through the National Native Sports Program or another affiliated program that they might want to start in their communities. At least they know how I structured what I did and how I helped them. I think that, in a sense, sort of guided them to help other youth.
Senator Chaput: If I understand, that school is in Alberta?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes.
Senator Chaput: Are there similar schools in other provinces that you know of?
Mr. Crowchild: Last year, I did not run my hockey school. There was no funding and I had outstanding bills. I mentioned the Role Models Hockey School, but they discontinued their hockey school as well. I cannot speak on their behalf, but I know that they discontinued because they did not have the funding.
Senator Chaput: Thank you.
The Acting Chairman: Mr. Crowchild, you have been stressing all along the importance of teaching Aboriginal youth life skills. You have talked about certain aspects of that, but could you elaborate on it a little? It is not just about teaching them Aboriginal ways. You also stated quite clearly that it was to make the transition to the urban society or, vice versa, to learn about their tradition. If you are to help us, perhaps you could elaborate on what you need to teach kids about life skills in order for them to survive and succeed?
Mr. Crowchild: I know when I was a young man and played hockey, what presented itself day in and day out as a player was what you needed to do, how you dotted your i's and crossed your t's with regard to meeting certain criteria, and what it took for you to be at the same level as someone with a different skin colour than yours. You ask that question. What I really pride myself on in helping youth is, if you are taking on the role of playing a sport, playing hockey, there are not just certain criteria you have to follow but certain things that you need to overcome, given the stereotype you carry as an Aboriginal person. You have to be in school at 8 o'clock in the morning. You have to make curfew at 10 o'clock at night. You have to stay away from the negative influences. You adapt a way of doing what you want to do, hockey. I know first hand, because I have broken these rules as a player. How do I help curb their thinking to make them successful? Is it by word of mouth? Do I tell them, if you are going to play for the Calgary Hitmen in the Western Hockey League, they will want you to do this? They want you to be at home at 10 o'clock, when they call curfew. They will want you to be in school. They will want you to be in the community. These are skills that these youth are picking up from me. Even as a 12-year-old boy who wants to play Bantam AA hockey, they may ask, "Warren, what do I need to do?'' I tell them that this is what they have to do: You have to put all your good times aside. When you finish your hockey in the summer months and are on the reserve, you will be going to the pow-wows, chasing the girls, getting phone numbers and staying up to 5 o'clock in the morning. That is a no-no. In the world of hockey, you have to be committed to a gym. You have to be in the house at a certain time. That is where the level of hockey is now. If anything, I want to teach these youth — and maybe this is taking it to the next level where you get into the National Hockey League or something — hockey becomes a business. These businessmen are investing their money in you. What kind of character do you have when you are away from the game? It is a question of teaching these life skills. Those are the life skills that I know I can teach. It is not only in hockey but also in other sports.
Going back to the question about the young girl who went into basketball at university in Calgary: she had these questions. I told her to stay with her training. What she does in the summer months is her training and nutrition, but if her friends want to hang out at the bar for a couple hours, maybe say no. That is a very strong point with regard to being away from the mentality on Indian reserves, because there are a lot of great athletes in every sport from our Aboriginal communities, but they do not know how to get over that hurdle, to dot their i's and cross their t's. If we had more programs that could focus in on helping these youth, then I would see more kids getting further on in sports.
The Acting Chairman: You are suggesting that what should really take place is that you should be cloned a few times over. Is it on the reserves that this work should really be done? Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Crowchild: With Aboriginal urban youth in city settings, their horizons are broadened a lot more than you find with the Aboriginal youth on reserve, because you are dealing with the negativism towards white people. You are dealing with the segregation of their thinking, even in the school systems. I have to say this on behalf of my reserve: That is still sort of what is taught from among our elders, that white men are bad. They put us in residential schools; they did this and that. How do you say, you are forgiven? How do you say "I want to be successful in sports''? You have to say, okay, enough of the hurt. Let us work to help these Aboriginal youth.
I think that is a major stumbling block. I am not saying anything against our elders or our native people at large, coming from the communities on the reserves in Canada, because in a sense I felt that way when I was a young man. However, I thought, "I want to be a hockey player. I want to be successful, so this is what I need to do. I need to adapt my thinking away from the reserve in order to be successful.''
The Acting Chairman: Are you trying to teach the kids to dream?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes. I was a police officer for five years after I finished playing professional hockey. To go into a setting on reserve, and have a youth bawling and cursing at you because you are wearing a badge, carrying a gun and are there to arrest his dad, that hits home pretty hard. Even in our societies today, within our Aboriginal communities, a lot of the Third World we see in Africa or anywhere else happens in our own backyard. I am not afraid to say it. I am not saying I have the answers, but I know it has to change.
The Acting Chairman: If we take this discussion one step further and go to the urban situation, dealing with the kids there and living their dreams, what would you recommend? What would you recommend to us to help those kids live that dream and learn those life skills?
Mr. Crowchild: I really wish I could answer that honestly.
The Acting Chairman: What about through your own experience?
Mr. Crowchild: Through my own experience? That is a question I have to think about. I know what I want to say, but it is a question of how to say it. I have seen so many youth initiatives come and go in my time that proved not to be a success. From my own standpoint, I know what I could do. It is just a matter of teaching other people to follow the same line.
The Acting Chairman: If I may interrupt, Mr. Crowchild, it is the same answer. We should take you and clone you, because you are an example of living a dream to those kids. You teach them how to live that dream, and you teach them the discipline to live that dream. That is what I think you are saying. Feel free to correct me if you feel I am not saying it in the appropriate way. If you were doing something to help kids in the urban setting, the program would need to have someone like you that those kids could look up to, someone who had been through the experience. Is that what should be done?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes.
The Acting Chairman: That is what you are telling us. You are telling us your life experience and how you have been successful with those kids. They need heroes, and you would be an example to them.
Mr. Crowchild: Yes. I did not get to be the cream of the crop but I saw enough in my travels to know that, when I look back on my life, I was successful. It is too bad a lot of our Aboriginal leaders do not share that sort of focus. I continually want to see more athletes play a bigger role in these settings. Not every Aboriginal athlete comes from a reserve. Some come from within urban centres, even within our Metis nation.
My grandfather told me, before he passed on, "Warren, you can never look down at anyone who has our blood in their bloodline. Some people do not like Metis somehow, but they are First Nations, just like you. Never be racist in that sort of thinking.''
To use Alberta as an example, the Alberta Metis Association is competing with Treaties 6, 7 and 8 for money and funding. We see it today. I mentioned the championship in Cornwall. I think every province is attending except Alberta. Why? Because Alberta Native Hockey is run by a Metis group, and the First Nations and Treaty 7 cannot be on the same page with them. They are fighting over dollars and cents, or even over sending teams to the championship in Cornwall. Everyone needs to be on the same page, working together. That is our downfall. I have seen programs come and go. I have seen the Role Models program — pardon the expression — talk the talk but not really walk the walk. I can safely say that that is my testimony; that is what I do.
I keep saying to you that I do not have all the answers, but if people want to listen to my answers, then I will make my point. You must realize that when I go to a school and talk to kids, they get great motivation. They want to do something. I want to do so much more but my program is limited. It is not about giving me money tonight. I do not need that. Regardless of what we get out of this meeting tonight, we will continue to work with people such as this standing committee to find answers within Canada.
If I waited for money to be given to me 11 years ago, I would still be waiting. I would be waiting for a cheque to come in the mail. I did not want to wait. I just pursued my dream for these kids.
Senator Léger: First, excuse me for being late. I had another committee to attend which finished at 6:30. I missed the beginning of your presentation, but this is the first time that I have heard, in a given moment, that the elders passed on, for example, all the hurt that "we'' have done. Every time I listen to witnesses, I hear everything that "we'' say. All of a sudden, my ears are hearing that the hurt is on both sides. Healing is needed on both sides. It is often said that we are the ones who think of Aboriginals as lazy and so on — all the things I do not want to say. I keep saying, let us teach everyone. Put history in the schools. We must get to know each other. Tonight I heard for the first time how it is the same on the other side. We are humans; we are all the same. I appreciated that.
Mr. Crowchild: Thank you. I was not late. If I have learned anything from hockey, I am never late. I am always an hour early.
To elaborate on what you mentioned, I have heard that from my own family, even from my dad who is 73 years old. He went to residential school. My mom went to residential school. He said, "Yes, we can be mad. We can blame. We can look at the Oka crisis in the 1990s. We can look at Wounded Knee and what happened to our Aboriginal peoples at Custer's last stand. Whatever. But there is a time to heal.''
Last year I was approached by a committee out of Ottawa from a residential school called the Aboriginal Foundation or something like that. It is setting up programs to deal with residential school issues. They approached me to host a workshop in southern Alberta on how to get the funding to start programs to begin the healing process. I most graciously helped out as much as I could. Some of our elders got involved within our community.
I must respect the fact that they went through that experience. I did not. Perhaps when I came from the reserve to get my schooling in an urban setting, that helped me more than it is helping our current First Nations school system in Canada.
When we opened our schools on Sarcee, in Tsuu T'ina, where I am from, kids came from the city schools to the reserve schools. In a year, I would bet that 60 per cent of the kids went back to the city schools because they were not getting the education. In grade 9, they were learning at a grade 6 level. Why would they want to learn in an Indian school when they can go to a white school and learn what they have to learn?
Senator Léger: You mentioned residential schools. Everyone who went through experience that came out broken and hurt. Are there some who came out who were not hurt?
Mr. Crowchild: Right now, I am living proof. My dad learned from residential schools to have life skills away from the reserve. That helped graduate eight of us, myself and my siblings, through high school. We had a family meeting before Christmas. My dad said that we talk about how much hurt came from the residential schools, but he gained from going to the residential schools.
Senator Léger: That did happen, then?
Mr. Crowchild: Yes. There was good and bad. He was fortunate not to be part of the bad. I am probably sitting here as living proof that success can be drawn from what they picked up from residential schools. I am not playing ignorant to say the hurt does not exist, because it does, but we have to heal. We have to heal to help these youth. In 60 years, I will likely not be here. I will be six feet under. We have to start a legacy now. That is what I think I started in 1992, and will continue. I will never close the door and I will never tell someone that I do not want to hear them.
I am so fortunate to be asked come here tonight. It was a struggle to get here, but I am here. It makes me feel good in my heart that I am here. After 11 years, someone has recognized the National Native Sports Program as a place to seek advice and perhaps to find resolutions to the problems that we have.
Senator Christensen: We have heard a lot from our witnesses about residential schools. Cultural issues and racism aside, there was a loss in the learning of parenting skills for the people who went to these schools. This is one of the reasons so many young people have problems; their parents lost their parenting skills at the schools.
You say that both your parents were residential school students. They had eight children. You look like a pretty well-parented kid to me.
Did they ever talk about that? Did they feel that they had, perhaps, not learned those skills? Could you expand on that?
Mr. Crowchild: My mother is full-blooded Blackfoot from the Siksika Nation in Alberta. My dad was sort of a mixed Cree, Sioux and Sarcee, Tsuu T'ina. We say Tsuu T'ina, but to me it is Sarcee. We did not pick up the culture where we smudged with the sweetgrass and where we prayed to the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit could be evil. When I pray, it is to the Holy Spirit. We became Anglican Church followers and that is what we picked up as young adults.
I am not saying that our family is a role model to follow, but every one of us has graduated from school. My brother got his Master's degree from Washington State University in physical education, or phys. ed. My inspiration to follow through with my sports was due to my brother, who had a Master's degree. He was a Tom Longboat recipient, in 1979. He has also been in the Ironman triathlon twice. Those are testaments of things we follow as a family. Our family talks about things like this. We can sit in my dad's house in the evening and talk about it. Not too many Aboriginal families can do that, if any at all.
I must be honest here. Now that you have raised that question, perhaps the successes that I tried to instil in my program is the downfall to why I cannot get funding within my own community, because they will shun people who are successful and keep their own people down. Sometimes I want to put my foot down and say, "I want to be chief here, because I would make my reserve more self-sufficient.'' We have the biggest problem in Calgary right now with not having an access road, and surviving because of the cutbacks on funding, education, health, whatever. When I have to take my son to the hospital, I have to pay for prescriptions. That is a cutback. These were treaty rights given to our First Nations.
How do we help? I continually knock on the chief and council's doors to make that change economically. How will we survive as a reserve and as First Nations? Take it upon yourself to create economic development opportunities. The biggest problem in Calgary right now is that we do not have a road that accesses the southwest corridor of the city to the north. It borders right on the reserve. I said, "Let us utilize my brother and get some computer-enhanced imagery to show your road to our people and let them make the decision.'' There are too many hidden agendas. Maybe the successes of what I do and why I started this program 11 years ago as the cause of my own people keeping me down and saying, "We cannot give Warren the money. He thinks he knows everything.'' That is the biggest perception my own people have.
The Acting Chairman: Are there any other questions around the table? If not, I thank you very much, Mr. Crowchild. What you had to say to us tonight was much appreciated.
Is your reserve in the northeast or southwest?
Mr. Crowchild: No, it is southwest.
The Acting Chairman: That is what I thought. I have been there.
Mr. Crowchild: It is right next to the city.
The Acting Chairman: We still must keep in session briefly. We can adjourn as far as the television cameras are concerned, however. This is simply business.
We have a new deputy chair of the committee, and we need to pass a motion to that effect, if it is acceptable to you. Senator Janis Johnson has agreed, effective March 3, to be our deputy chair. Is it agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Acting Chairman: Carried.
There has been a great deal of travel by committees taking place recently so, as usual, our side of the house is stretched as far as being able to travel. However, I understand that from March 17 to 21, this committee is going to Winnipeg, Vancouver and then Edmonton. We are okay in two of those spots, meaning that our side will have Winnipeg and Vancouver, but we will likely have a problem in Edmonton because no one needs to go there. We need to have a quorum of four, and we need to have someone on the other side in order to have that quorum. It is important that we have a quorum, and we may not have that quorum. That is the concern that we have. I am expecting all of you to be there, which is easy for me to say.
We have a motion before the committee. It reads as follows:
That the restrictions on holding meetings to receive and print evidence without a quorum, as set out in the committee's decision dated October 30, 2002, be suspended from March 17 to March 21, 2003, inclusive.
That allows us to sit without having a quorum, which means with fewer than four members. Is there any discussion?
Senator Christensen: Can we do that?
The Acting Chairman: Yes we can. We just cannot take votes.
Senator Christensen: I will second the motion, then.
The Acting Chairman: Is it agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Acting Chairman: Carried.
The committee adjourned.