You can maybe give me a one-minute signal.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity.
My name is Chief Bill Erasmus. I'm actually the national chief for the Dene Nation, which comprises 30 communities in the Northwest Territories, one community in Alberta, and one in northern Manitoba.
The Dene are a large linguistic family that is actually in Alaska, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and northern parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. We're also in the lower 49, where they call us Apache, Navajo, Hupa, and other tribes. The linguistic family, in the books, is Athabaskan.
Again, it's a pleasure. My comments might not be directly related to the proposed bill, but I think it's relevant to make comments that will have the committee put together their thoughts on how to proceed.
As for my background, I was trained as a political scientist and as an anthropologist. I try to apply that work, along with my upbringing as an indigenous person from this part of the world, to my everyday thinking. I'm still a young man, in my view, but I've seen many changes over the years. I've been a chief since 1987 and have held office continuously since then. I've seen many political leaders come and go, and I've been very cognizant of Canada's position when it comes to issues related to our lands and our environment. In fact, until the end of last week, I held the national portfolio for environment for the Assembly of First Nations. So I was very aware of the issues related to climate change, global warming, and the concerns people have around those issues.
For our people in the north, it's a reality. It's real. Today, for example, it's maybe minus 10 degrees, at the most, in Yellowknife. It's very cloudy. It snowed a bit last night. It's the middle of November. When I was a child, it would be at least minus 30 degrees at this time of year. The ice would be frozen, and that would generally be normal. We didn't get a lot of snow.
We already have snow in Yellowknife, enough snow a year that would keep us for the winter. In other words, we're getting record amounts of snow. In some ways it's good, because in the spring the earth cleanses itself. The problem, and many of you can relate to this, is that the city's snow removal budget is well cut into already. And there are all the other related problems we have in municipalities.
Once you move out of our communities or our reserves or where we reside, it becomes very difficult for our people to maintain their way of living. For example, I know of at least one person who's gone through the ice already. He was lucky to get out. He didn't freeze. His friends got to him. He is one of the trappers, one of the local people who knows a lot about the land. The problem is it's very difficult to judge the ice, the snow. People are having a lot of difficulty.
In terms of the animals, you've probably heard about the caribou. We're having great difficulty because there's a huge decline in caribou right across the north, from Alaska, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, into Nunavut, into northern Quebec, and so on. Caribou are a very interesting animal. There are different species. The ones closer to you we call woodland caribou. They feed off different food. They're a bigger animal. Some are almost as big as a moose or an elk. But the more northern caribou, which we're just as familiar with, are the barren land caribou. They're smaller and they're very vulnerable. There are also what you call mountain caribou.
These animals are having a very tough time. I'll talk just about this year, for example. We had rain here a week ago, which is very uncharacteristic for this area. We would never see rain after mid-September at the very latest. But now we're getting rain in November. I believe a year ago, or the year before, it rained at the end of December and in January, which is the coldest time of the year. It should be minus 45 or minus 50. If it rains, you'll get a layer of ice after it cools and the animals cannot get underneath the ice to get the food they need to sustain themselves. If this is maintained throughout the winter, in the spring when they have their young they are malnourished. They have their young and they don't survive. They just drop them. So there are fewer calves. That has happened. There's scientific evidence for that.
But the caribou are having difficulty not only because of the climate. Other things are happening. Major developments in the north may be causing problems. For example, Canada's food guide states that we ought to eat caribou and wild game and so on, but if you can't get access to them, it doesn't help us. For example, if there's a diamond mine in the way of getting to these caribou, then there are problems. And if development is happening where the caribou are going to have their little ones, then the caribou are not in the right frame of mind to have their little ones. It's like the problem we had a number of years ago when there was a proposal to have low-level flying up here. It was proven that the low-level flights affect the animals, especially their eardrums.