Evidence of meeting #12 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you to all three of you.
Mr. McLeod, you will get to wrap it up with a five-minute round.
Go ahead please, Mr. McLeod.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the presenters here today.
I have to be quick because I don't have a lot of time, so I'll just jump right into it.
Mr. Nitah, thank you for your presentation. I'm very familiar with the indigenous guardians program. I was very excited to see what's going on with the Thaidene Nëné park agreement. There's lots of good stuff happening. If it were up to me, there'd be an indigenous guardian program, an aboriginal head start program and a friendship centre in every one of our indigenous communities. That would really help a lot and go a long way.
It's clear that the indigenous guardians program and the indigenous protected conservation areas are key to addressing Canada's reconciliation. I think you said that. It also helps us with our environmental goals. Could you also speak to the socio-economic benefits for indigenous people that these programs provide?
Senior Advisor, Indigenous Leadership Initiative
We know, based on studies here in the Northwest Territories and also in Australia with the example of the Australian rangers program and indigenous protected areas over there, that for every tax dollar that's invested in these programs, there's a savings of up to $3 for the Canadian tax base. There are savings in other areas of expenditures, in the form of reduced participation by indigenous peoples in the criminal system, the justice system, the health system, the social services system and the public housing system. They start contributing to the tax base of the country.
Also, on the reconciliation side, the assimilation policies were focused on removing indigenous peoples from their land—
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Mr. Chair, can I get Steve to hold his mike up? It's hard to make out.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Yes. Steve, just bring your mike up a little bit again. I didn't get a complaint from the translators but if you could... You're okay now.
Go ahead.
Senior Advisor, Indigenous Leadership Initiative
The indigenous leadership initiative, which supports indigenous nations across the country to build indigenous protected and conserved areas, is a great opportunity for reconciliation. We're talking about shared relationships, meaning shared authority in many cases and indigenous leadership in other cases. All of this is in the spirit of reconciliation. Employment opportunities are created. Business opportunities are created through tourism. Indigenous tourism is the largest growing industry; it's a $2-billion industry globally and growing.
In Canada and globally we are faced with the impacts of climate change. In Canada, we hold a great deal of responsibility to the global community just because of the size of our country. The boreal forest alone holds 12% of the global carbon storehouse. They are asking us to protect it. That's a big chunk of land.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
I want to get one more question in, Steve.
I want to jump over to the friendship centres. I want to direct this question to Chris Sheppard, because he hasn't had a chance to respond to any questions.
I've been watching over the years. I've been involved in the friendship centres. I know about the start and stop. I know about the hit-and-miss funding allocations that have been going on for years.
Chris, can you tell us and speak to how critical it is for the friendship centres to have some substantial long-term funding commitments from the federal government in order to have the indigenous communities fully participating in Canada's COVID recovery?
President, National Association of Friendship Centres
Thank you.
I'll start by saying that when I started coming to these committees, friendship centres had a permanent program. We had a youth program. We had employment and training programs. That was before I was even 30 years old. Now we have none of those things.
I think we need a program that has a cycle of at least 10 years so that we don't continually have to start preparing for the next funding cycle before five years. We need investment in infrastructure and young people.
I'll keep talking if I can keep going.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Go ahead and just finish your point there, Mr. Sheppard. Then we will have to end.
President, National Association of Friendship Centres
I think my final comment, which I keep making at every committee, is that the Government of Canada needs to find ways to recognize that the majority of indigenous people live in urban communities. The proportion of funding that goes to those communities is minuscule when you look at the total envelopes. At some point we have to start providing the resources to match the needs where people actually are, in policies and in programs.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay.
Thank you for that.
We are definitely over our time.
Just for committee members, the notices went out for tomorrow's meeting. Although we have invited witnesses for next Monday, and maybe even Tuesday, we still don't know if we're going to get an agreement in the House that will allow the committee to meet virtually next week. That's just for your information. We'll see where it goes with the House leadership of all parties, I guess.
To the witnesses, thank you very much. I know it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to prepare the submissions that you forwarded to us by mid-August. We did get 793 submissions this year. They will all be taken into consideration. The committee and the analysts will go through them and pull out what we can.
I also want to sincerely thank you, first of all for presenting us with the briefs, and for coming in and answering our questions today. It's been an interesting afternoon.
With that, thank you again.
The meeting is adjourned.
