Agriculture Committee on Feb. 26th, 2019

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's been very consistent with what our government has been doing, which is investing in infrastructure and investing in items that will return growth to the economy.

We're looking at employment growth as well and the opportunities around indigenous employment. Cargill in Guelph has had a shortage of butchers for a long time now. We're trying to get butchers from other countries to come. Maybe there's an opportunity to attract indigenous people into agriculture.

Is that anything that your group has been involved with? I know you're mostly involved with capital. Are you also looking at human capital?

[Dr. Andrew Leach]

Yes, definitely. We have different types of aboriginal financial institutes. We have aboriginal capital corporations, ACCs, that are specifically in the lending business. Community Futures is a partner. I'm sure Community Futures is in your communities. It is a bit more than lending. It's a bit different. It does the type of support that you're talking about, such as training and the like.

We're there working with both of them on what their needs are and how they can address it. There are definitely training capacity building opportunities in specific sectors that we have the ability to target because we have boots on the ground to be able to support those particular sectors.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm really glad you brought up Community Futures. Before politics, I attended a meeting in Thunder Bay where Community Futures was working with the NAN, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. The opportunity for mentorship and the opportunity for training was there.

Has the federal government picked up on that? Could we include in our report that the federal government consider partnering with Community Futures and first nations or indigenous people?

[Shannin Metatawabin]

The beauty of our network is that half of our members are Community Futures organizations. Our organizational members are aboriginal capital corporations that do peer lending and Community Futures. We plug into that closely, and we represent Community Futures.

[Dr. Andrew Leach]

Rather than just dealing with each individual Community Futures, you could come to us because they're all under our umbrella. Then we could work with them to make sure that the program we're trying to create is off the ground. We'd know how to tweak it so that it actually fits as best as possible.

We even give them a bit of flexibility—well a lot of flexibility—so that they can actually make it work for them on the ground.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

In my riding of Guelph, we don't have a Community Futures organization, but around us we do. The Western Ontario Wardens' Caucus in southwestern Ontario is working on opportunities around Community Futures, but I've been having trouble nailing that down with ISED to see where we help to make the bridges. Do you have any suggestions?

[Shannin Metatawabin]

I think ISED is working with Two Rivers, an aboriginal capital corporation in the Six Nations, so it's right around your riding.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Sometimes I learn more about my riding at these committee meetings than I do when I'm in my riding.

[Shannin Metatawabin]

The beauty of NACCA is we represent 59 aboriginal financial corporations all across the country. It's an infrastructure that's embedded in all of Canada. Each of them has first nation communities, tribal councils, community members that they connect with. They've seen people grow up from the time they were born, so they know everybody. Their due diligence is based on relationships and knowing the people. That's what's made 2.2% loan loss rates—the lowest in the world. They're flexible.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

You mentioned container farms. The University of Guelph has been developing container farms to grow tomatoes on Mars.

I asked in a previous study about container farms as an opportunity for indigenous people. Sometimes the food grown in those farms doesn't apply to country food or the food that indigenous people need. Do you know from your network where those opportunities sit, so if I were to connect.... We have a container farm manufacturer located in Guelph. We have the University of Guelph. How do we make those connections to see where the opportunities lie for investment in indigenous communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Make it a very short answer, please.

[Dr. Andrew Leach]

The short answer is we could get that information and get it back to you.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That would be tremendous. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Mr. MacGregor.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Mr. Metatawabin and Dr. Leach, thank you for coming today and contributing to our study.

When you use the term “agriculture”, it's a concept that has many different meanings. We have our modern construct, which is a very technical enterprise, but if you go to first nations history and their management of the land and food resources, it's very different. I come from Vancouver Island, and I look at how the Cowichan, the Lyackson, Penelakuts and Stz'uminus manage their food resources. We have evidence of careful management of the Cowichan River, building weirs to manage the salmon stocks. There's evidence of managing ancient clam beds. There's a common expression among the nations in my riding. They say that when the tide goes out, the table is set.

We also had some great testimony from Chief Byron Louis. He talked about some of the great opportunities that exist finding international niche markets. For example, in the interior of British Columbia a lot of ginseng is being grown. A previous witness brought an extract of Labrador tea and also the leaves. I've also read some articles about haskap berries being grown up north and their resiliency.

I'm wondering if you can add a little to Chief Byron Louis' commentary where you see some potential growth areas for first nations, Métis and Inuit.

[Dr. Andrew Leach]

That's an excellent question.

I think there's an untapped market out there for all the indigenous entrepreneurs who are growing their own unique organic products. Sometimes it's been going on for many generations, and they just don't know how to market it. They're drinking it. They're consuming it. They're sharing it among themselves, but that stuff's good, and there's an international market for it. We should start taking a look at how we could start getting more access to that. You know how it works. You first do it locally and inevitably you start thinking down the road about doing it internationally. Some of them should be able to start looking at that, because those opportunities are there, but I think they're going to need support on capacity, on marketing, on the legislative and legal framework around them. Those are quite the impediments for new entrepreneurs and ours, so I think it would be good if we could provide support.

One of the things we did talk about in another meeting was trade shows. Can we fund and organize a trade show, an international one, where we could get our food products somewhere and start exchanging and maybe see what kinds of markets we could look at?

[Shannin Metatawabin]

Perhaps I could build on that. I have some experience. I work for a mining company, and in some of their environmental work they found that in the muskeg areas—and I'm from James Bay where the muskeg is—if they aerate the soil, they can turn that soil into croppable land. We have untapped resources in the north on that type of thing. It's something that needs to be tapped, in looking at and providing some food security for the north.

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

That leads me to my next question.

We have these great opportunities for economic development, but you also mentioned, as we have also heard from previous witnesses, about the terrible food insecurity that exists among so many first nation communities. I'd like to hear some of your thoughts. On the one hand, we want to encourage that economic development, but can you provide thoughts as to how first nations can maybe take control of their own food sovereignty to provide for their own individual communities and how we build capacity within those communities to actually do that?

[Dr. Andrew Leach]

I'll give you an example. In my community, we actually have a food security program. It's funded, by the way. It's been around for awhile. They do good work and it's really small community stuff. I think more of that is really important to developing that arena.

In my experience going up to the Far North, one of the things that stands out for me is the food insecurity up there and how we might want to tackle that. What dumbfounds me is that I see lots of power going through some of these communities, but they are not able to access it. How can we get that? This container stuff that we're talking about, how can we get these things going? I think we need to be more aggressive in our support, especially of the north and isolated communities where food security is a real issue, and to find ways to get those going.

Sometimes I think we might have the answers and just need support, but sometimes I think we need help in coming up with some answers too, because some of these are pretty challenging, when you talk about transportation costs and isolation and things like that.

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

Yes. We've also heard testimony about the lack of infrastructure and the distribution network. It covers such a vast area. When you look at our north, you could fit Europe in our north. It's an incredible space.

[Shannin Metatawabin]

With the north though, there are some good examples of good food security projects that have been in place and that continue to be successful today. For 20 years, they've been doing farmers' markets in James Bay, flying the food in and creating a palette so that everybody is used to the fresh vegetables. If you go to the northern stores, which have been the primary source of all food in the north, they don't provide any options. If we introduce the options and get the word out about what works, then we can expand those programs.

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

Can you maybe add a little bit more to your comments on more flexibility and what you would like to see? Is there anything else that you can add for recommendations to this committee for AAFC programs?

[Dr. Andrew Leach]

I think the main thing is that we need to talk with each other and be open to being flexible about what works and makes sense. You start with an idea and listen to your partners, really listen. They may say it's like this and we would work better that way and be open to that. That's for both sides. For us as indigenous entrepreneurs, we need to say, “Okay, it makes better sense if it works like this for them, so let's be flexible and make it that way.” As long as we're both flexible, I think we can get some good work done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacGregor.

Thank you, witnesses. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have, but if you do have anything that you would like to submit to the committee, please do so and we'll certainly include it in our report. I want to thank you again for being with us today.

We shall suspend and return for the business portion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We are resuming the meeting.

You have the floor, Mr. Berthold.