Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to members of this committee for giving me this opportunity to make this presentation here this afternoon. My name is Alvin Fiddler and I'm one of the deputy grand chiefs from the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. I want to begin by telling you a little bit about the place I'm from, my home territory.
The Nishnawbe Aski Nation represents 49 first nations communities that signed Treaty 9 back in 1905-06 and again in 1929-30. It represents 45,000 people who reside in that territory and covers a wide geographic area. If you look at the map in your package, you can see that it covers two-thirds--or over 200,000 square miles--of northwestern and northeastern Ontario. We speak three distinct languages in that territory: Cree, Ojibway and Oji-Cree.
As I said earlier, this year marked the 100-year commemoration of the signing of Treaty 9. We did not call it a celebration, even though I know some government circles called it a celebration. We call it a commemoration, because we strongly feel that there is no reason to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the treaty. I'll talk more about that in my presentation.
The message we sent out this summer during the commemoration events is that while we have kept our terms of the treaty, our bargain to live in peaceful harmony with the settlers who came into our territory 100 years ago, Canada and Ontario have failed, and failed miserably, to live up to the commitments they made to our forefathers when that treaty was signed 100 years ago. So I come to you today not as a stakeholder or as part of an interest group, but as a treaty partner.
As I said, if Ontario and Canada had made an attempt to fulfill even some of those terms of the treaty, our communities would probably be among the most prosperous in the country. Instead, if you look at our communities, if you visit our communities, you will find that many of our communities are caught in a poverty trap. We are one of the poorest regions in Canada.
If you look at the news last year involving Kashechewan and the other communities that declared emergencies with water and with other natural or health disasters, you will see that many of our communities mirror the third-world countries. Health conditions are among the worst in Canada. There's a lack of effective public education.
You will also see that we are one of the fastest growing demographics in Ontario, if not in the country, so this is adding to the economic strain in our communities and our territory. Our communities are a scar on the conscience of Canada.
We have said that the policies this government has created and has implemented in our communities are not working. There is little in the region's current dynamic that promotes an escape from this poverty I am speaking of. Current federal transfers simply maintain the basic necessities of life.
As I said, the rapid growth in our population is only compounding the problem. Out of our population of 45,000, 67% of the people are under the age of 27. Because 35 of the 49 first nations communities that I represent are fly-in communities and do not have roads or railways that connect them to their community, the cost of transportation is extremely high--travel, receiving goods.
The region carries a disease and a health burden that is unique in Canada in its severity. In recent years the most prominent issue in the region has been clean drinking water. Last year I think it was a good example when Kashechewan--