Evidence of meeting #128 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was land.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Luc Berthold
Mr. Peschisolido, if you don't mind, let me interrupt you here. You can resume speaking immediately after the presentation of our next witness. He has just arrived and we will allow him to give his testimony. This may lead you to ask different questions.
Good morning, Mr. Michell, and thank you very much for joining us. You have six minutes to make your presentation.
Chief Patrick Michell Chief, Kanaka Bar Indian Band
Thank you for this opportunity.
There are 633 first nations or bands in Canada and 203 in B.C. Collectively, we're all positioned to be community hubs for regional food security and stability, with capacity to expand incrementally into the provision of surplus fresh and processed meats, fruits and vegetables for Canada. Faced with the decline and possible extirpation of the Fraser River wild salmon stocks, Kanaka has articulated that the people of the salmon must become the people of the potato.
Kanaka intuitively knows that what we are experiencing on the ground here today—forest fires, flooding, air quality, smoke inversion layers, wind events, power failures, changed precipitation patterns and heat—will be growing in frequency, duration and intensity, with even greater adverse impacts on local area agriculture production and food availability. Therefore, Kanaka has made a commitment to become a sustainable food self-sufficient community, and has instituted the first proactive steps in doing so.
Located in British Columbia in a region known as “Canada's hot spot”, Kanaka is one of 15 communities that make up the Nlaka’pamux Nation today. Kanaka Bar's story is available online. A recent Kanaka presentation on sustainable agriculture, “From the Ground Up”, is also located on our website.
A basic quality of life requires stability in food, air, water and shelter. To better understand these essential life elements, Kanaka recently completed a land use plan, a community economic development plan and a climate change assessment and adaptation report. All of these are available online through our community website.
These foundational documents and our first steps towards sustainable self-sufficiency are small due to resource deficiencies. Support today to address foundational deficiencies in land, agricultural infrastructure, data, people and money would be appreciated. The following is a list of areas where Canada could provide support toward indigenous communities, as their own-source revenues are small.
The first area is land. Kanaka assessed our current reserve land base and wound up purchasing six adjacent fee simple lands off reserve for the purposes of securing and developing food, shelter and water certainty for the community. We used OSR to produce maps of the land and resources on and off reserve. We have started to clear the land; fence the land; start crops, chicken coops and beehives; and build a first greenhouse. Greenhouses, barns and fences are needed in the summer now to protect crops and animals from extreme heat, drought, air quality and light diffusion issues. Development off reserve can also see an increase in regional taxes, as infrastructure investments are improvements that change assessed values.
The second area is water. Kanaka has installed water-gauging stations on four of our year-round water sources to generate site-specific data regarding water quantity and water quality. Kanaka has started replacing antiquated and inefficient ditches with water lines and new above-ground intakes so that we can have stable and predictable year-round water for drinking, agricultural purposes and small hydroelectric purposes. Surplus water can also be made available for the region in case they run out of water, or be used for fire protection purposes too. Kanaka could use financial supports to pay for the design and construction of legacy water diversions, lines, storage and treatment.
With regard to weather, using OSR, Kanaka has installed three weather stations to monitor site-specific temperature, precipitation, wind speed and air quality. Kanaka is therefore designing and implementing agricultural practices for the environment of tomorrow based on site-specific data so that we have sustainable agriculture. We can share the data with Canada, but we will need support to ensure that the information we gather meets national meteorological standards.
The last area is electrification. The cost of fuel is going up and soon scarcity will come into play. This is regressive—these costs are passed on to our membership—so Kanaka is seeking to become energy self-sufficient. Kanaka has completed the installation of seven solar projects to date, and now has two years of annual solar data collected, allowing for the design and expansion of small solar. Other data sources allow for wind and hydro to be harnessed as well, which can power our buildings, our agricultural infrastructure and electric vehicles. Canada can support Kanaka's agricultural electrification initiatives similar to the recent electric tractor story out of Ontario and the solar-, wind- and hydro-powered greenhouses, barns and processing centres.
Thank you again for allowing Kanaka to share. After all, what we do to the land we do to ourselves.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Luc Berthold
Thank you very much, Chief Michell.
We will now resume the question period, starting with Mr. Peschisolido.
Mr. Peschisolido, you have the floor for six minutes
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Mr. Obed, I'll begin with you.
In your presentation, you discussed reclaiming food sovereignty, and you also went into the dichotomy between your approach and others. Can you elaborate a little on what reclaiming food sovereignty would involve, and how the federal government can be helpful in that process?
President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
The ways in which any of us create good mental health, and also continue our family, are grounded in many ways by what we eat, how we cook and how we access our foods.
In many cases in the south, you go to a grocery store and then your culture happens in the kitchen. In Inuit society, our culture happens in the act of harvesting, in the act of going on the land, in understanding the land and also in the interaction of living things within it. Our relationship with our food is not just one of dietary interest and nutrition but also of our society and the continuation of who we are as a people.
I will highlight the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and their proposal for Tallurutiup Imanga, which is hopefully going to go through this year as a new protected area.
One of the highlights of their proposal is in relation to Inuit guardians of the space. Those guardians of the environment are also harvesting and providing food to their communities in Nunavut's High Arctic. That is a part of food sovereignty. It's reclaiming our place as keepers of the land—stewards of the land, if you will, in a southern context—but it's also breaking down the cycle of conservation for conservation's sake.
It is not only in the policies we are hoping to work on with the federal government. It's also in accepting that the way we interact with nature, the way that we practice respect for nature, is outside the normal bounds of conservation. It gets into our ability to eat our traditional foods, to have them available and then also for us to be 21st-century Canadians with access to healthy store-bought food as well. Food sovereignty also includes ensuring that the nutrition north program works correctly, and that there are options for us.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to move on to Chief Patrick Michell.
The area that I'm blessed to represent is Steveston-Richmond East. The south arm of the Fraser runs through the area.
I was intrigued by your comment that the people of the salmon have to become the people of the potato. Can you elaborate a bit on what you meant by that?
Chief, Kanaka Bar Indian Band
For 8,000 years the wild salmon population was the mainstay and the main blood of my community. My entire language, my culture—everything is defined by the salmon. In 2017, we weren't allowed to food fish for salmon due to extreme conservation measures.
I'm attending a meeting next week on the forecast of returns for 2019, and it's dismal. The cumulative effects of the last 150 years seized the wild salmon population. They were just unable to do what they used to do. In the absence of our traditional food source and the mainstay of our economy, we have to transition to something else. We must adapt. That's what we're faced with. There's no smoking gun. It's just all of the above.
Other forms of traditional food sources in my region are also disappearing due to climate change. The extreme heat is making the ungulates move. We are also trending towards overhunting. In the absence of the fish, we transfer our desire for traditional food sources to others, so we may now be overharvesting. If we don't come up with an alternative—which is agricultural-based practices—there is going to be some trouble coming for all of us.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
A part of the agricultural-based practices is food processing. I want to follow up on Mr. Drouin's point.
This is to all of the witnesses. Perhaps we can have the folks from New Brunswick begin by talking about the importance of food processing and the unique characteristics of the indigenous community.
Manager, Natoaganeg Community Food Centre
Part of what we've been doing is about the immediateness of it. We're pretty grassroots. We're at the community level, so in anything that we're doing, we're leaving enough meat on the bone to include community. We're not operating any facility or hiring any facility to do that, so everything that we're doing is in-house. But we definitely are looking to preserve things as much as we can to create that kind of link.
Some of the things we're doing are canning moose meat stews and that sort of thing, where people can have that in their space. They have access to that and it's accessible. It's easy to obtain. It's easy to use. It's something they enjoy. We put the love and the pride into cooking it in a certain way.
Again, we're pretty grassroots, but I think the other side of that, again, is going back to the school food. There's a movement in New Brunswick of using schools as a facilitator of that process, and distributing through the CANB, the organization in New Brunswick. That's something that we connect to, but, again, I think schools can be used, especially in rural Canada and on reserve.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Luc Berthold
Thank you very much, Mr. Peschisolido, but unfortunately your time is up.
We will now hear from the last witness, Chief Reginald Bellerose, who is joining us by videoconference from Regina, Saskatchewan.
Mr. Bellerose, you have six minutes for your presentation.
Chief Reginald Bellerose Chief, Muskowekwan First Nation
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Good morning to the chiefs who are here. The leadership in Treaty 4 territory acknowledge the area that you are on, unceded Algonquin territory.
Part of our goal in Muskowekwan First Nation, in terms of agriculture, comes from the land base. We have a land base of 64,800 acres. We believe this is our way to a better future. Part of it is that we have to correct the wrongs of the past. The way settlement took place was by moving the first nation people on to settled areas. With that came a loss of land. Our populations are growing, and our perspective is that we need to increase the land base. That is our solution.
Next in terms of agriculture comes partnerships. Because of the high capital cost of equipment—I'm talking about agricultural production and the high cost of capital for equipment and input—it's very difficult for a first nations start-up to get into agriculture in a big way. We have established partners, preferential partners. We're basically in a lease arrangement for our land now, trying to figure out ways, such as crop sharing, to get greater return for the lands.
We have another project, on urban lands that we have outside Regina, called “Project Iron Horse”. Part of it is that Muskowekwan is a community with railway from day one. We dealt, going back, from 1906 with the Grand Trunk Railway. We believe facilities and transportation are very important. Project Iron Horse allows first nations to pressure CN and CP in a political way, apart from what the provinces and Canada are doing, to say that we need to open up, especially in Saskatchewan, which is very landlocked and is challenged in getting the agricultural commodities to market. In that way, we're trying to increase our participation in transportation, especially by rail.
Another important area is marketing and branding. Muskowekwan has a long-term agreement with the farmers' union in India to supply potash and soil enhancement products, expanding it into peas and lentils and into the pulse crops. We believe we are a nation that has the ability to market our goods and commodities globally. This is what we've exemplified by signing that agreement.
As we look at identity, preserved in all of these types of ways consumers look at making their purchases, we believe that a first nation brand globally would have a lot of positive impact. Part of the branding would be that many of our first nations lands have not seen a drop of spray or chemical or any of that type of application. Part of the belief is that much illness is caused by the application of those types of chemicals. We believe that our way of growing could actually help improve the quality of health for many people.
Our last area is youth and programming. We need to make investments in our youth's understanding of food security and of agriculture production. We can't wait until people are adults. We have to make those investments in the youth, whether by partnering with 4-H programming or creating our own type of agricultural program tailored for first nations. Those big investments in youth, whether for production or for cattle or for calving operations, whatever it may be, will I believe be worthwhile investments.
I want to thank you for your time. Those are the perspectives that I bring.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Luc Berthold
Thank you very much, Chief Bellerose.
We will now continue our round of questions.
Mr. Poissant, the floor is yours for six minutes.
Liberal
Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC
Thank you very much to all the witnesses.
Right now, the House is considering a bill to protect First Nations languages. I think our witnesses speak different dialects. I would like them to tell us, in turn, whether their language is currently in use or whether it is threatened.
Program Coordinator, Natoaganeg Community Food Centre
Yes, growing up in my community, people my age—I'm 28 years old—have lost the language completely. There's nobody my age at all who is fluent in Mi'kmaq. I was brought up in a home where there were fluent speakers. However, for so many different reasons, it wasn't encouraged to speak it. Residential schools, intergenerational trauma and all of those things come into play. It's really unfortunate, but as of right now, my son, who is eight years old, is learning his language in his school, which is really incredible.
Liberal
President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Inuit have the healthiest indigenous language in this country. We don't have the most speakers. There are more Cree speakers than there are Inuktut speakers, but a full 84% of Inuit who live in Inuit Nunangat can speak Inuktut. That is an incredible achievement.
It also is something that we are still concerned about, because there is language erosion and language shift. We've seen a drop in the number of speakers, but also in the complexity of the language. We are hoping that the federal legislation can be revised to ensure that the very practical measures that have been taken for English and French, and the supports for them through the Official Languages Act, can be at least seen as equal to the need to protect and promote, and the right to utilize our language within our homeland.
Nakurmiik.
February 7th, 2019 / 11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Chief, Kanaka Bar Indian Band
Yes, the Nlaka'pamux language is known as Interior Salish. As previously mentioned, there are intergenerational issues. My mother and grandmother were fluent in the language, but at my learning age, they refused to teach me the language. As a result, our language is recorded, but it's just not practised.
One thing we've started instituting at the band office is that the elders will speak and the youth will listen, but it also requires the youth to listen so that the elders will speak. We're creating space for elders and youth to actually get together. They've started recording simple vocabulary words that we've put on our website. It's introductory. Our challenge is that there's no formal curriculum. I can count to a hundred. I can say, maybe, 200 to 300 words, but it's very hard for me to speak in sentences because the language isn't being used on a daily basis. It's not being used in the schools. It's not being used in the offices. There has to be a context for it to be used in, as well.
Chief, Muskowekwan First Nation
Thank you. We're facing the same thing as many first nations, coast to coast. Again, it comes back to the land. Part of our focus in Treaty 4 is land-based training. We have to get our young people out on the land. The paradigms of relearning and re-establishing cannot be controlled by a provincial or federal government. That has to be controlled and directed by first nations.
My own belief is that it can't be in a classroom. It has to be outside. It has to be out on the land. Many of the languages across the country are not in a facility or building. They're out on the land, the water, the animals—those are big parts of the language. Land-based training is a key focus in Treaty 4 right now.
Liberal
Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC
Some of you have lost your languages. I would also like to find out about your traditional methods of producing food. Do you feel that your traditions of producing and preparing food could be threatened?
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Luc Berthold
Are you addressing anyone in particular, Mr. Poissant? It would be easier if you specified someone.
Liberal