Agriculture Committee on Feb. 7th, 2019

[Chief Patrick Michell]

Again, the language we have is vocabulary based, and when you learn the words, you learn the practice. For example, tokchola is huckleberry, but the word itself carries when to pick, how to pick, how to process and how to consume. Within the language is who we are, and who we are is defined by the land.

We have a word for fish, sqyéytn, but only a few people know all the names of the species and all the names of the parts including the offal, so if we reintegrate this food practice with traditional harvesting as well as bring in a new agricultural practice, we'll be able to reintroduce people to the language and the language could be used. You can converse in the Nlaka'pamux language, but you can also converse in English.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, that is all the time we have.

The floor goes to Mr. Yurdiga for six minutes.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for sharing your knowledge with us. It is very important.

I have a farming background, a trapping background. Things have changed over time. Knowledge was passed down to me from my father regarding farming with respect to the land and also trapping and hunting. When we grew gardens, we canned, but my children don't want that. They are changing. It's too easy to go to a local grocery store or some establishment, so I think knowledge is failing us all for the next generation.

I like these programs where we want to get back to producing our own food and provide food security. Understanding your environment is now on the forefront, and I appreciate your efforts.

My first question is for Chief Bellerose. From my experience, capital cost is a tremendous burden for somebody wanting to get into agriculture. Harvesting equipment is $500,000 plus. Tractors.... It's a very big venture for anyone wanting to go into it.

What do you believe needs to be done from a policy perspective to ensure that young, indigenous farmers who want to get into the business are successful? What do you foresee we need to do?

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

Thank you. I appreciate the question.

In terms of capital cost, it comes down to security, and part of our challenge in first nations is that we can't use our existing land or any assets as security for borrowing. There is no concept of debt on reserve.

In terms of a real solution, it is addressing the land tenure of the first nations system through the Department of Indian Affairs. That's a very real challenge, obviously, because 60% to 70% of the Indian Act has to do with lands, but it's Crown land collectively held. There are no individual property rights.

That is how I would answer, David.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you very much for that. It is important. I can't go to a financial institution for a loan without the ability to back it up. I appreciate the struggles and the challenges that face many communities.

You mentioned organic farming, not using sprays on a lot of the land, and there is a big push globally to have more organic farms, and I think that is important. In your mind, as a business model, would you want to promote more organic types of farming or just farming in general, no matter what it is?

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

My perspective is that it is what the end-user wants. The end-user is the customer, and ultimately, if you go to fewer chemicals and less spray, prices increase, and if the customer is prepared to pay that premium price, producers can basically produce what they need. It depends on the demand.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

My next set of questions is for Mr. Duplessie and Madam Ward.

During your testimony, you mentioned some projects within your community, and the things that stood out were the greenhouses and the community involvement. What are some of the challenges you face in starting these programs to enhance communities, to have more food security and especially to interact with youth?

[Chad Duplessie]

We put a lot of attention into.... What we see on TV around food marketing and that sort of thing was alluded to. That was a big challenge. One of the things about working with youth is that you had to make it cool for kids to want to eat broccoli. Everything else in the world is telling them the opposite. There was a lot of attention put into this. It was social marketing and really getting in there, finding programs that they thought were interesting and cool, and then sliding in the fruits and vegetables, healthy eating and the community volunteerism.

With the adults, it came down to trust. We've been in operation in the same space for almost two and a half years, but we're just now getting to a place where people come in. They'll come in and open up, share, and say that they're struggling with this or that this is an issue. In our space, we always bring it back to food. The garden is a good place for mental health, connectivity to the land and the community, and going onto the land fishing and hunting. Again, with all of these big, loaded, health issues, we're able to pull them into good food: how we get our hands on good food, and how we work together to create it.

With kids specifically, it's a struggle. It takes investment. It takes people thinking creatively and strategically, and then building trust and relationships. That's on the ground. That's funding in the schools and on the ground.

Right now there is a movement with the Coalition for Healthy School Food to get the federal government to do a $360-million investment to give every student healthy food access in Canada. I think there's something to be looked at around first nations schools, starting there and working there to build that. If we couple that with the ability for communities to come around and build their own food sovereignty and agriculture to support that at the end of the day, there's an opportunity there.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Thank you, Mr. Yurdiga. Your time is up.

Mr. Breton, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us today.

I will continue with Mr. Duplessie and Ms. Ward, from New Brunswick. I paid particular attention to your testimony. As I understand it, you represent a community organization in New Brunswick.

According to studies commissioned by various universities, there are more food security issues in Atlantic Canada. I don't know if you are familiar with those studies, and it doesn't matter. Is this a challenge facing First Nations people in Atlantic Canada, particularly in your region? Can you give me specific examples of what is happening where you live?

[Chad Duplessie]

Sure.

Eel Ground First Nation is a small community of 600 on reserve. It's a suburb of the city of Miramichi. You can literally leave Eel Ground and within two minutes be at the border of the city. In Eel Ground, the food insecurity rate is 40%, of which around 15% is severely insecure. In the city of Miramichi it's 12%. Something happens within that city with the same job market, the same grocery store and all of these same things, but there is over three times the amount of food insecurity in that suburban neighbourhood just outside of that city.

It does speak to something pretty complex. I think the root cause is poverty. It's social assistance rates. It's people's inability to enter the job market and to have enough in their pockets to pay for the groceries. I think you could probably expand that to all of Atlantic Canada in that it comes down to not having enough money to pay for the food and a job market that doesn't allow it.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Duplessie.

Mr. Michell, in your testimony, you talked about the environment and sustainable development. That caught my attention. Can you give us some specific examples of what you are doing in this regard? What could be exported or exportable to other reserves?

[Chief Patrick Michell]

A concrete example is that our crops did not do very well this year, and we determined it was because of the smoke inversion layer. Our crops weren't getting the light.

The idea behind it was that we put up our first test greenhouse to provide.... It's currently growing as we speak. It's -17°C and there's no heat and no light in it, but crops are growing in it. It's a thermal greenhouse, but that greenhouse will also be used in the summertime to also provide a better lighting area. Greenhouses, as I mentioned in my presentation, are designed to provide year-round crop growth by controlling the environment. Field crops are going to start struggling, so we can still grow those crops. We just need to protect them.

We need water stability. In regard to these inefficient ditches that we're replacing, I have a water licence for 25 litres per second at the point of diversion, but I'm only getting three litres per second at the point of use. By replacing those ditches with water lines and a good reservoir, we have water security so that when a drought is around and the land outside of the crops is failing, the actual area that we're irrigating is doing well.

We are also planting our own traditional food sources like the Saskatoon because mother nature is beating up the traditional food sources, but we can actually irrigate them and harvest those. Because these challenges are here, we can actually adapt by just understanding what is occurring. If we invest today in these infrastructures that I've described, and we forecast increased adverse impacts, we can step up what we need to do to make sure that we have established food stability.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Chair, do I have time for one last question?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

You have 40 seconds left.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Great.

Mr. Obed, you said that the Nutrition North Canada program is having a positive effect. What more could the government do about that program? It seems to me that it is useful and has a positive effect where you live.

[Natan Obed]

The nutrition north program must be a social program, first and foremost. It must ensure that the end-user, especially considering our food insecurity rate, is the sole recipient of the subsidy or the primary benefactor in the entire process. One of the only ways to do that is to show that in transparent and accountable ways and to ensure that not a penny on the dollar of that program is being utilized in ways that don't lead to increased food security for those intended.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Thank you, Mr. Obed and Mr. Breton.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

When I was asking questions earlier, I was asking what programs you thought would be needed and what would be practical, because when we're talking about having a facility that would process fish and so on, and that would be a great thing to have in a community, you have to have labour. You have to have the ability then to be able to ship that to different places around the world if you're going to be dealing with that size of an operation.

I think that's really one of the things I'm asking when I talk about the practical side of it. Do you know that you would be able to have the labour to handle that? What type of infrastructure would you have? What magnitude of an operation would you be looking at? I think the idea is great, but I'm just wondering if you've taken a look at that.

The other thing I want to speak to is where the role of government comes into this, because CFIA is one of the organizations that is going to tell you exactly what it is that you can market when you go from one boundary to another, and we have to make sure that we have dealt with that.

I believe that's a critical part. It doesn't matter whether it's a country food or any other type of meat product, for example. If it's going to go across a boundary, you have to make sure that you follow certain rules. What would you suggest to CFIA that they should do to make it possible for you to move the products that you would like to see produced and then exported so that we can actually allow for the discussion about what you might need as far as infrastructure is concerned.

[Natan Obed]

I'll start with the infrastructure question. The cost of doing business in Inuit Nunangat is exorbitantly high, and we have existing concerns in relation to our infrastructure, whether it be enough water for our communities, the quality of the water, the price of electricity or the fact that all of our communities are still on diesel. We're looking for alternatives with which we can have reliable, cheap and also environmentally friendly power in our communities.

Our economic development landscape and our economies are based on government and natural resource sectors. Usually it's large natural resource projects that drive the GDP within Inuit Nunangat regions. Having more infrastructure, especially in relation to fishing, would allow for another form of revenue for long-term, sustainable growth for our communities in a way that we don't have now. Processing our natural resources in Greenland or in southern Canada takes away opportunity and the participation of Inuit within Canada's economy.

I don't believe that we need to start with massive infrastructure that would require an influx of southern labour. There are natural progressions from inshore fisheries or other sustainable harvesting hunts that happen within Inuit Nunangat that could use greater support and subsidy to ensure there is sustainable use.

Once we get to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, we're actually just looking for the first conversation. We host events here in Ottawa and we want to celebrate our traditional food and the way we eat it. We luckily now have a relationship with the National Arts Centre, where we are allowed to serve our country food at one of our big dinners that celebrate Inuit culture.

Most venues within southern Canada will not allow traditional foods that are raw or frozen to be served within any event, so we're still at the very beginning stages of a respect for the way we eat, for it to be respected by Canada.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I know my time is up. I was not looking at bringing people up there to work. It's to make sure that we have the workforce there already and give them that opportunity.

Thank you so much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

Mr. MacGregor, you have three minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Chief Reginald Bellerose, I would like to ask my question to you. You made comments in your opening statement about the fact that you have a lot of land that has been freed from fertilizer and pesticide use. One of our first witnesses in this study was Chief Byron Louis from the Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia. He really saw the future in the international market for indigenous peoples finding those niche markets. I think you touched upon that as well.

I attended a breakfast earlier this week that was hosted by the Canada Organic Trade Association, and I know that we have the Canadian Organic Growers. When I saw those statistics of the growth of the organic market, I realized that it is phenomenal. Any agricultural group would give anything to see that kind of growth rate. I think, with the growing amount of consumer interest in how their food is grown and so on, there is a real opportunity.

I want to pose the question to you. Have you had any interaction with the Canadian Organic Growers or the Canadian Organic Trade Association to see if some assistance or partnerships can be thought out in that particular way?

[Chief Reginald Bellerose]

We haven't at this time. We've been more focused on preserved identity at this time, but also leading towards the organic. One of the challenges with the organic cattle is that the minute they're treated they have to be pulled out of the herd and then the question is what you do after the cattle are pulled out. They're basically of no value in the organic system. It's this whole structure, A to Z, I believe.

In terms of your question, it's something we can follow up with. Thank you.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

My next question will be to Mr. Obed. I only have about a minute.

You talked about the problems with infrastructure and the fact that it is very much a north-south approach. I mean, your summers are full of sun; you can almost see the sun travel right around the horizon.

I'm wondering if the secret is that we try to reach out to those individual communities to help them build their greenhouses so that we don't rely on the distribution network. I'm just trying to find ways forward.