Health Committee on April 21st, 2020

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you very much, Doctor. I appreciate that.

As we know, after the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, many of our first nations in Canada, such as, in my riding, Carry the Kettle Nakoda First Nation, the Cowessess First Nation and the White Bear First Nations, have taken positive steps in setting up monitoring stations at their entrances. I know this is going on across the country. In fact, I've been led to believe that about 376 communities have done that. It's important for them to develop this emergency response plan and protocol in the event of a future pandemic.

Grand Chief, what are your thoughts with respect to creating a coordinated emergency response plan for all first nations across Canada, while continuing to respect your individual jurisdictions?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

I think theoretically it works. Practically, I'm not sure how that works. I think when you start getting into the different regions there are problems with coordination. Communication is always a big factor in those kinds of scenarios. In any national strategy there are always going to be regional demographic differences. How do you communicate effectively between the national level and the regional level, which may have a better understanding of what's required and better communication?

What we've found is that if you have it more regionalized.... I know the larger strategy is important, but you can have large strategies that are in the region. I think that's what you have to build off of. That's the best way forward. You can't connect at the same level from a national perspective. You can't connect locally as much as a more regional body would.

That's what we've done. We've been connecting very closely with the communities. We have people in the communities who work with our organization. What we've found is that we're better received, our communication lines are better and we continue to get a great deal of confidence from the community in our organization. We think it should be the same thing with any health strategy.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you very much, Grand Chief.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We'll go now to Dr. Powlowski.

Dr. Powlowski, you have five minutes, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm the member of Parliament for Thunder Bay—Rainy River. I'm happy to acknowledge the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation. Chief Collins, I hope you're watching.

I think some of you may know that Thunder Bay has the largest urban indigenous community, proportionally speaking. My questions will go to the friendship centres.

We know that the expected lifespan of people from indigenous communities is significantly shorter than that of people from non-indigenous communities, and there are concerns about having the resources to deal with urban indigenous populations. One of the concerns of people in my riding, and of someone who worked with youth at risk in the indigenous community, is that because we are trying to use social distancing we are unable to bring together at-risk youth for counselling. This is a real concern. As he rightly pointed out, these are youth who probably have a far higher risk of dying because of suicide or violence than because of COVID-19, and now we're asking them to pay the price for protecting the elders in all of our communities.

What can we do to ensure that we continue to provide services for that kind of at-risk population? What can we do together? I know that one of the big things you're going to say is money. Our party realized that $15 million isn't enough and that it's just a start. Besides money, what can the friendship centres and the government do to address the risks to that vulnerable population?

[Christopher Sheppard-Buote]

Thank you. My favourite questions are about indigenous young people. On my screen in front of me, there are at least three of us who were members of our national youth council.

In terms of one thing that Canada can do, right now in this country there is no program specific to indigenous youth to support their identity or their culture or to create leaders. There is nothing. The fastest-growing demographic in this country does not have a specific program for it.

Canada's literal future economy is based on a population that has the least amount of support of any demographic, yet we ask what we can do for a population that has the highest rates of suicide, the highest rates of self-harm, the lowest educational attainment and the highest rates of incarceration. It's a fact that you have no program that is specifically designed for indigenous young people.

Other than that, I don't know what else to say.

[Jocelyn Formsma]

Perhaps I could add quickly what we've been hearing from the friendship centres. There are a few things.

A lot of the friendship centres are trying to provide supports for youth who are in foster care or who are youth in care, because sometimes the friendship centre is the connection to their culture and their community in the urban spaces. We've heard that some friendship centres are doing the best they can to provide special outreach to those young people.

We are also calling for some technology—software, hardware, tablets, laptops and cellphones —so the friendship centre staff can move to a virtual service provision instead of working out of an office and still be able to connect. They also want to be able to donate or to lend these devices to community members so they can stay in touch, not just to young people so they can keep in touch with their counsellor at the friendship centre, but also to other vulnerable members of the community, such as indigenous seniors, whose mental health is also being affected. They are unable to connect as well.

A lot of friendship centres have transitioned their programming to be capable of virtual access. They have been doing a lot of youth-specific outreach to keep young people connected with each other and have been trying to find new ways to connect.

I will add there the connectivity issue, the issue of ensuring that the Internet is widely available, especially in the rural and remote northern communities, so that they can tune in to some of the programming and have access to content that is being developed to help them stay connected.

Also, it's not just having the Internet available, but being able to pay for that Internet at home so that we don't have young people who have to walk or drive out to parking lots and huddle under a blanket so they can do their homework or connect to what's happening and have access to all these virtually provided services.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Ms. Formsma, you did mention—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Marcus, I believe your time is up.

I think Grand Chief Daniels has a response. Did I misunderstand?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

We can comment.

It's important that mentorship is a cornerstone of helping our young people pass on the values and the teachings of our people. I obviously benefited a great deal from many of my elders, many of my elder cousins and people within the friendship centre movement who helped mentor me.

When we think about young people, it really is about a mentorship, supporting one another, and in this case, a national strategy. It was one of the reasons, when I was first elected Grand Chief, that we created a youth council here. We gave the youth a vote. We work very hard to try to mentor our young people. We go out of our way. We had drum practice here.

A lot of that was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We were out on the road taking action, such as running and raising money for diabetes. There were all kinds of actions we were taking. That's an important part of creating better outcomes and a better quality of life for our young people. It's by creating as much opportunity as we possibly can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We go now to Ms. Jansen.

Ms. Jansen, go ahead for five minutes please.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

First I want to say thank you very much to all the witnesses. It's been very eye-opening. I very much appreciate all of your testimony.

I was reading a newspaper article from CBC that said that some members of the military were being deployed to predominantly indigenous northern fly-in communities, and it said that they would be making clean drinking water available.

I was wondering, Ms. Gideon, whether it is that easy. Do we have to have COVID-19 to get clean drinking water to those communities?

[Valerie Gideon]

I apologize. I don't have any specific information about any requests for assistance relating to drinking water, but our department wouldn't necessarily see all of the requests for assistance. Those would be submitted through provincial or territorial governments.

I do apologize, but I do not have the specifics on that front.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay.

[Valerie Gideon]

I would say to you, though, that having surge water infrastructure and capacity are things that communities are submitting requests to our department for as part of the COVID-19—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Sorry, I have a really short time. My apologies.

I have a question for Jocelyn Formsma, and it is actually also in regard to water.

I have seen a photograph of 24 bottles of water for $100, and I hear that a bag of flour sells for $100 as well up there, and I'm just wondering if that is normal. Are those normal costs up there?

Can you speak to that, Ms. Formsma?

[Jocelyn Formsma]

Are you referring to costs in the territories?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Yes.

[Jocelyn Formsma]

I might not be the best person.

We're looking at friendship centres all across. Perhaps in the northern territories that might be the case, but the folks from ITK might be better able to speak to those matters.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I think overcrowding was another thing you mentioned. How is social distancing done in the homes that are overcrowded? Are you, Grand Chief, familiar with how that is able to be carried out?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

Yes, I can actually answer that.

In Berens River, actually, they've been working on creating a camp for isolation. That's what the council has been communicating to me.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

On the topic of water infrastructure, we have had huge problems with the water infrastructure process, and I think there's a very big conflict happening within the regional office on this issue. We've had examples of infrastructure development that cost almost $2 million over what could have been utilized. Skownan has an example of this. Just down the road in Waterhen, they had a water treatment plant that was award-winning. It took water from the lake, while the one in Skownan took water from the ground, because it was a state-of-the-art membrane system. It cost $2 million more, and to this day it hasn't worked.

That's a clear example of where the regional office has failed when it comes to providing water for our communities.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I have a quick question, then, in regard to getting information out.

I know that Ms. Gideon talked a lot about getting information out in regard to COVID-19 and so forth, but it's my understanding that even the cost for data, as I think one of the previous witnesses mentioned, is hardly affordable.

How exactly do we get that information out to everybody with those kinds of costs?

Maybe Chief Daniels could also speak to that.

[Valerie Gideon]

I can say that we are funding communications activities. When first nations organizations have submitted requests, for instance, for communications campaigns or outreach, we have funded those.