Human Resources Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[Chief Lance Haymond]

The fourth option? Can you explain that again a little?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Well, say you are Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario and you move to Montreal to go to law school, but your housing needs are being discriminated against. You, as a northern Quebec reserve, wouldn't provide that housing to that individual.

[Chief Lance Haymond]

No.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

You would expect a fourth program to pick up the needs for that person who may be finding himself temporarily in Quebec.

[Chief Lance Haymond]

Or we would hope that indigenous service providers who are already offering that service in that particular city would step up and provide that service.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Fair enough.

We've heard references to the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation. Are you aware that to access that capital money you not only must approve resource projects, but you must invest in resource projects? That's the way you access those dollars.

I'll ask Madam Hache about this as well.

As a requirement to gain funding for housing, you have to buy into resource projects and approve resource projects. Otherwise, you don't qualify. Is that a suitable way to screen money for indigenous housing?

[Chief Lance Haymond]

From my perspective, it's not. That's kind of heavy-handed, in that it's a high price to pay to access a human right and a service and to have access to housing.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Arlene Hache, could I ask you the same question?

[Arlene Hache]

To put it bluntly, it's ass-backwards. If you have been continually structured into poverty, how are you to have the resources to buy into that scheme?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

In terms of the Northwest Territories, one of the challenges that is not well known to people who live in the south is that a place like Behchoko does not have access to AFN money and also is not listed as part of the territorial housing program because it's seen as an indigenous treaty rights and treaty-holding organization. Is that one of the gaps that a northern housing strategy should, can and must address?

[Arlene Hache]

It must, because the difference between the north and the south is that you actually have some indigenous governance system there. But in the public government system, there's a lot of facade or gaslighting to suggest that indigenous people have a voice in how that money is distributed and used. That doesn't exist. There is no indigenous housing provider in the Northwest Territories. There are only government housing providers, and those do not include indigenous government housing providers.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Based on a trauma-informed methodology for housing and a trauma-informed methodology for stabilizing people's lives, if it's not indigenous led, do you share the experience that earlier witnesses have shared with us, that indigenous people will not go into non-indigenous led housing programs if they don't feel it's their people running those systems?

[Arlene Hache]

They don't go. Even if they do manage to scrape through and go out of desperation, they don't stay. If they try to stay, they're very often kicked out, which brings us to the other issue. There is no protection for indigenous people in non-indigenous housing such as transition housing.

There are huge numbers of dollars invested into housing, but they can literally eject tenants with no governance and no protection for those tenants. It's really different from private market housing.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

I have just one last question. Would you agree—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

No—

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

—that a housing program has to extend beyond just housing and that medical services, child care and other supports need to be included in any urban-rural northern housing program?

[Arlene Hache]

In the shelter we ran, there was a medical clinic, a daycare, a family centre and advocacy services. It operated just like a community, and communities don't leave people out and they don't marginalize people. It is an inclusive, wraparound service that moves people forward into productivity.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan and Ms. Hache.

Ms. Chabot, the clerk has informed me that we can give you and Ms. Gazan a turn to speak. You'll each have two and a half minutes. We'll extend the meeting by about five minutes to allow for that.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you. It's appreciated that we still have the opportunity to hear from our witnesses.

Chief Haymond, in your testimony, when you talked about gaps, you said that the governance rules should be changed and that there should be new ones. My understanding is that this is to better address your concerns. I know that you've submitted several briefs on possible solutions or observations.

Is communication with departmental officials fluid? Do you feel you are being heard?

[Chief Lance Haymond]

The simple answer is yes. I think we are heard, again, because we have the regional liaison committee in Quebec, which puts Mr. Latouche, representatives from ISC and CMHC, and me together to find solutions. Absolutely I think it contributes to our finding real solutions.

The ultimate goal, as I indicated in my opening remarks, is to take care and control of first nations housing for our communities, but we have a lot of work to do. We need to build capacity in our communities. We need strong housing agents. We need chiefs and councils to really understand what the cost of housing is. Our big push right now is capacity building.

The second axis of our strategy really relates to what the different types of funding and programs are that we as first nations can develop, and that make the most sense for us in Quebec. I'm a firm believer that the solutions to our challenges in relation to housing will really come from us here in the region; we will find our own solution.

The third axis is to really change that governance with regard to how housing is delivered, in the sense that if we do one and two, we will determine the governance structure that we need to take over care and control and delivery of first nations housing to our member communities in the province of Quebec.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

The last questioner for this evening is Ms. Gazan.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a question for you, Madam Hache, in regard to housing. In 2019, the government announced the Inuit Nunangat housing strategy, which was worth $400 million. There were 53 Inuit communities in Canada. We know from the statistics from Stats Canada and CMHC that 39% of Inuit in Inuit Nunangat live in crowded homes; 33% are in homes in need of major repair, and 33% have core housing needs. We know what is happening during COVID, where cases have gone up from seven to over 70 in a couple of days. Do you think this funding, which is to cover a period of 10 years, is sufficient? Do you think, in response to the current issues arising with COVID and the rapidly increasing numbers, that the government needs to act now to save lives?

[Arlene Hache]

That amount didn't even touch it. People will die, and the government needs to act now. The complicating factor is that the funding is structured through a public government system that actually is not controlled by Inuit in community, so women and families are not going to survive in that structure. They haven't survived and they're not going to survive.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Would you say this kind of culture of incremental justice when it comes to the human rights of indigenous people in Canada is resulting in a loss of life right now during COVID?