Good afternoon, everyone. I am going to do the first five minutes and then I'm going to hand it off to our president, Mr. Sheppard-Buote.
My name is Jocelyn Formsma. I am the executive director of the National Association of Friendship Centres, NAFC. I am originally from northern Ontario. My family is from Moose Cree first nation, and I grew up in the surrounding area in my territory.
Friendship centres have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 response since the first day. I will give some examples of what they have been doing. They have been responding to increased service demands, delivering food to families, young people and elders. They have been responding to calls for assistance and support, and we've found that there are additional calls around sexual assault and family violence. They have also been providing mental health and cultural supports for urban indigenous community members. They have been asked to lead task forces or have just started them on their own, responding to the needs in urban settings. They have been asked by mainstream agencies to help deliver supports. They've been emptying their food stores, cooking food for community members and picking up and delivering food and traditional medicines.
We've even had an example of a friendship centre that went to a family home to deliver food, and they found out that the family's stove had broken down. They purchased a stove and arranged for it to be delivered to the home. In another instance, we found that they were delivering food to a family and that the father was very ill. They convinced him to go to the hospital so that he could seek medical attention. He thought that, whatever he was dealing with, he was safer at home than going to the hospital to deal with that medical issue. Although it wasn't COVID-related specifically, there are so many things that friendship centres have been doing to step up in this space.
The NAFC represents 107 local friendship centres and provincial and territorial associations, operating in every province and territory in Canada except Prince Edward Island. The services offered are as diverse as the communities in which they are located. They key point is that they are all culturally informed and culturally appropriate.
The NAFC received word from Indigenous Services yesterday that we will be receiving $3.75 million from the indigenous community fund, and that was representative of 100 different organizations, including the NAFC, six provincial and territorial associations and 93 local friendship centres. We certainly appreciate the support, but we know that these funds will not last long, and we welcome the opportunity to work with the government to seek additional supports for friendship centres.
Friendship centres are experts in urban indigenous service delivery. Since the 1950s, we've been working in a wide variety of our communities from Inuvik to Montreal to Labrador, Vancouver Island and everywhere in between.
Indigenous people, as we know, are diverse. A diversity of approaches and partners are needed to respond appropriately to this COVID-19 pandemic. We know that friendship centres are already providing services, food, supplies and staffing. We need support for creating safer spaces now and in the future. We need support for equipment and information technology, software, hardware and protective equipment for our staff, volunteers and community members.
The distinctions-based approach has affected urban indigenous pandemic responses. In echoing the words from the MMIWG inquiry report, we believe and would advocate that distinctions ought to be defined with an intersectional lens, not just including first nations, Métis and Inuit, but also considering the residence of indigenous people, the province or territory that they're in, whether they're remote or northern residents, their physical and mental abilities and their sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. We believe that, by including an intersectional lens to distinctions, we will be better positioned to provide wider and greater supports for urban indigenous community members.
I will provide the committee with a bit of context. In the early weeks, we found that jurisdictional wrangling had an effect on our ability to respond. As a national association, we immediately went to Indigenous Services and received word that the provinces and territories would have been expected to step in within the urban spaces for indigenous people, but when our provincial and territorial associations went to the provinces and territories for support, they were saying that we should be going to the federal government for financial support. This led to a lot of running around for friendship centres and nobody taking full responsibility.
We know that first nations, Métis and Inuit are a priority group for testing. They're a community of concern for the virus. We want to ensure that urban indigenous voices are considered and that our communities are considered in whatever approaches are taken to respond to this pandemic.
I'll hand it off to President Sheppard-Buote to wrap up our comments.