More than 20 aboriginal young people from northern Ontario are to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today to discuss a number of issues plaguing their communities, including mental health.
They also plan to address other challenges faced by indigenous youth, including the need for proper housing and the right to be protected from physical, sexual and mental abuse.
The meeting comes as the Liberal government continues to face pressure to provide additional resources such as mental health support and child welfare services on reserve.
At a recent commons committee, a government official admitted the 10 First Nations wellness teams that exist across the country at the moment are insufficient.
Trudeau’s meeting with the youth delegation will be followed by a sit−down with Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Bruce Shisheesh.
That meeting was agreed to in May following a spate of suicide attempts in the northern Ontario community that garnered international media attention.
Shisheesh and Trudeau will also be joined by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde.
Last week, Bellegarde said he would also raise the inadequate level of child welfare services on reserves during the discussion.
"The short−term, medium and long−term strategies that have to be put in place, that will be one of the items to be talked about," he said.
Over a nine−year period, the AFN and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, led by First Nations advocate Cindy Blackstock, fought the government on the underfunding of child welfare services on reserve.
In January, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal delivered a landmark ruling, saying the federal government discriminated against native children in its funding of welfare services.
Despite this finding, the federal government continues to racially discriminate against aboriginal children in its delivery of on−reserve services, Blackstock told a Commons committee last week.
The government has also presented no evidence that First Nations agencies are somehow incapable of providing their own services and therefore can’t be treated equally, she added during her scathing testimony.
In April, the tribunal ordered the federal government to provide detailed calculations and evidence on why it believes its last budget meets its child welfare obligations.
In its maiden financial blueprint, the Liberals committed $71 million this year to the delivery of those services.
The amount needed to close the gap is actually somewhere around $200 million, Blackstock said.
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