Thank you, committee, for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Before I begin, I just want to acknowledge the unceded Algonquin territory that we're located on and thank them for the care that they've shown in caring for this land and allowing us to be here.
I am Valerie and I come from Mashteuiatsh in Quebec and I live in Labrador currently. I am the director of the indigenous leadership initiative, which is a partner in the international boreal conservation campaign. What we do is we help indigenous nations strengthen their nationhood in order to have results of good management systems on the land. Strong nations make strong decisions on lands, and that's what we're about. As an international boreal conservation campaign, we seek to have the boreal forest be not only the best conserved but the best managed terrestrial ecosystem in the world, and Canada has a great heritage in its boreal forest.
We're here to talk to you today about a national initiative called the indigenous guardians network. What we're proposing and the idea that we're proposing is to create a national network of moccasins on the ground who are responsible for not only monitoring and watching out for their own lands, but feeding that back into our decision-making and our own management system related to those lands. We have clear visions and aspirations for the future of these lands, and the guardians program represents a way of expressing that vision and those aspirations.
What are guardians? They're essentially the eyes and ears of communities on the lands. I directed a program for almost a decade with the Innu nation in Labrador and our favourite saying was, “Today's guardians are tomorrow's ministers.” It's really about finding a way of expressing your own governance and your own systems of management in a modern context of a shared future with governments and other Canadians.
This idea is not new in Canada. In fact, there are 30 such programs that exist across the country. They include the Innu nation program that I'm involved with, but also the Ni Hat'ni Dene program that is associated with the Thaidene Nëné proposal, the Gwaii Haanas watchmen—I have a colleague here, Miles Richardson, who is very familiar with that program—and the coastal guardian watchmen network in British Columbia, which is a well-established network. These programs have shown and proven that when there are guardians in place, the conversation around not only resource development but also conservation is a much richer and deeper one.
We have a vision that all indigenous peoples across this nation should have the ability and the opportunity to avail themselves of such programs. We think that this would create a real context for a deep conversation on what nation-to-nation management of lands and our shared future looks like with respect to lands.
We've also been inspired by a program in Australia. This is called the working on country program. It's been running for just over eight years now. The Australian government has invested over half a billion dollars in these positions, and the results have been quite remarkable. They now employ nearly 800 full-time rangers who actively manage lands across Australia. The results of the programs, to their credit, have been quite remarkable.
They include a marked reduction of rates of incarceration of indigenous peoples, a reduction of rates of violence against women, a reduction of rates of obesity and diabetes, all these amazing social indicators, in addition to the obvious land management results that come from programs like this that include programs around the management of feral animals, very interesting fire-management regimes in Australia, species at risk, parks, indigenous-protected areas, and other such services. I could go on.
We are here this week meeting with various representatives from Parliament, ministers, and other government officials to discuss not only our vision but also to work with government in forming this idea. We really think that this could be a path to reconciliation and, as we look at the various mandate letters and recommendations under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we see that a program like this could really help government achieve some of its objectives with respect to reconciliation with indigenous peoples.
Finally, I'd like to thank you all for your time and to acknowledge my ancestors in the Innu culture who have helped guide me with respect to how we do right by our lands and our own cultural responsibilities to them.
Thank you.