I thank you very much, Chair, and I'd like to welcome the witnesses here.
This is very important to all of us right across Canada. One of the common themes I've been hearing and feeling is family. If you have a healthy family, you have a healthy community.
I think we have to go back and create the happy family atmosphere that has been lost. The youth have a passion, and I'm really impressed that these are our future leaders. They want to move forward aggressively. A lot of times they're limited by resources, which is a challenge. I think that moving forward, resources have to be made available. It's always about the grassroots. A lot of the time, program money is very difficult to get because there are many barriers in place.
What I'd like to see eventually is direct funding to the youth, because they are our future. I heard one comment that really touched my heart; it was that the family circle has been broken, and a lot of it is the result of the residential schools.
In your opinion, how can we fill that gap? How do we heal the family? I think its a big challenge for everyone to try to mitigate that aspect, because the residential schools took a large portion of that circle away. In your opinion, how can we heal that? How can we move forward?