Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and thank you to members of the finance committee, the Assembly of First Nations national chief, the Métis National Council and other dignitaries who are on this call.
I want to start with a quote from one of our chiefs, Chief Sitting Bull. He said, “Let us put our minds together and see what kind of life we can make for our children”, and that is so appropriate in this unprecedented time when all of us in Canada must come together and work together for the good of all Canadians and the humanity of our people. Our elders, known as knowledge-keepers, have always told us that we are to work together. When we signed our treaties—Treaty No. 8, Treaty No. 11 and other treaties—we were to work together.
Today, COVID-19 is pushing us to think together for all of Canada and to honour our elders, and so, Mr. Chair, I have a point to raise with you today. We ask, as Dene, to please allow us some grace and flexibility to do what we have to do to stay alive.
We have done this for thousands of years. We want to thank Minister Miller and the other ministers for giving us that flexibility by supporting lots of families to go back to the land, and to help our families, the ones who are able to, to go back to the land. We want to thank those ministers for listening to the Dene, listening to the aboriginal people, and helping us do this as we continue to look for continued funding to stay on the land and be self-isolated, as we have been told. For the Dene, it means being who we are. We look forward to financial support to continue this, but we also look for the financial support that we need in our most vulnerable communities for our most vulnerable people, our elders, because some of our elders are not able to do that.
We are finding that some elders have to go a long distance to pick up groceries in other communities. We have four communities without any stores. They cannot live in this time on the existing pensions that they receive. They are going above and beyond what most other Canadians maybe take for granted. For the most vulnerable of the Dene Nation, quick, credible research shows that we really need to look at some financial support for our elders. As my colleagues have indicated, they are there in our small communities.
We are working closely with other governments, such as the federal government through the regional office staff, the territorial government and with the chief public health officer to take the necessary steps to protect our nation and our people. There are 15,000 Dene in 27 communities, and 12 of those communities are accessible only by boat or plane. Now it is Easter and the winter roads have been closed, so we are looking at food security and other essential services for those communities.
Our indigenous communities all across Canada have been identified as the most at risk of COVID-19 because of their remoteness and minimal service. For example, in the Northwest Territories we have 10 communities without RCMP offices and eight communities without any full-time nurses. The Dene Nation was concerned, as we were considered to not have adequate equipment or preparations. We did our own survey and we will share the identified gaps and inadequacies in our communities.
This information has proven very helpful in planning and working with the chief public health officer in the Northwest Territories. The Dene Nation also spearheaded and got support from Canada to look at existing funding agreements. We continue to push for direct funding to bands, so that the chiefs and councils can work with the Dene families to go on the land, to look at how certain segments of society, such as schools, have shut down and to look at how to protect ourselves. There has been a huge uptake of this support in the communities for going back to the land. When we asked, between 853 to 1,880 people said they are prepared to go on the land immediately if they have the funds and more are still calling to go on the land. We thank the federal government for reacting, at a time like this, more quickly than we ever imagined. We know it's possible and we must not revert to the old way of doing business. The Dene will do what the Dene need to do to survive as a nation and sometimes that goes against a policy that we have to work around.
Yellowknife is the largest magnet community in the Northwest Territories. It has the largest indigenous population in the north at approximately 5,500 people, the majority of whom are Dene. The Dene Nation has applied for $800,000 of federal funding, under the special program, to provide support to urban indigenous people. The Dene leadership was also very concerned about the abuse of alcohol and the negative implications it is having on our people to fight COVID-19. The leadership met by teleconference on April 2 and 3 and passed a historic motion calling on the Government of the Northwest Territories to immediately institute restrictions of the sale of alcohol and cannabis using steps like the rationing of alcohol and cannabis, restricting hours of sale, increasing monitoring and enforcement to curtail bootlegging—bootlegging is doing really well up this way—and support for communities to use the available power to prohibit alcohol should they choose and to look at wellness programs to help our people. If we're asking them to do this, we need to back them up and not leave them in the mess. We need to put together community-specific Dene wellness healing programs.
The health of our people is our primary concern, but we are also very concerned about the economic health of the Northwest Territories with all the layoffs, business closures and food insecurity because of COVID-19 related restrictions. With food security, we are very concerned about our elders—as the federal government knows, we call them our knowledge-keepers—not having the means to put food on the table.
There is access to food as well as cost, where some communities have no stores, as I mentioned, and in some communities, private stores are raising their prices. We also want to make sure additional support for the elders is not clawed back from their pensions or income support. I raised these concerns with Deputy Prime Minister Freeland and Minister Miller at a meeting that they were at with the AFN executive last week.
I'd like to identify this as a challenge, in regard to dealing with Canada. We continue to struggle to ensure the bands are adequately resourced and supported by Canada. The Canadian government wants to work with the GNWT on a government-to-government basis. We do not want specific program money from Canada for our nations to go through the GNWT. Those days are over. We have to look at the Dene government contributing. As the national chief said, we need to work with you. Without our consent, without our control, it doesn't work anymore. This is no longer acceptable to the Dene. Simply put, nothing about us can be without us.
Overall, we are pleased with how Canada has been responding to the COVID-19 emergency and how well they've been working with us in the Northwest Territories. I would like to state that here today for the record, as we continue to defend against COVID-19. Given the time of the year, we must turn our minds to the rapid approach of the flood and forest fire seasons. We are praying that this will have minimum impact on us.
Finally, at this time of the COVID-19 emergency, I would like to wish all of you a safe and healthy Easter break, and a good long weekend with your families.
This is my last comment of the presentation today. We are told to work with our Métis brothers to the north. We ask that you not forget them when you look into the funding. We have 10 Métis nations here and we want to make sure that they are with us. As we've been told by our elders, the Dene and the Métis have to walk side by side and work together. Please think about the NWT Métis.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Chair.