Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Deborah Richardson. I'm a member of the Pabineau First Nation from New Brunswick, and in my spare time I'm the acting regional director general of Indian Affairs, Ontario region. Here with me is my colleague, James Cutfeet.
James and I are the two leads for the Ontario region on the Pikangikum file. We're here to provide an overall update, communicate the community's priorities for change that the community has passed on and shared with us, and then to entertain questions from the committee.
The first nation's priorities for change in the community consist of electrification, school, water and waste water, and housing. They're also in the process of developing a community-driven action plan that will start to look at their health and social make-up within the community too. That's really driven from within the community, and they're developing strategies about how to engage the youth in terms of what their community looks like.
Pikangikum is a Government of Canada priority. Obviously, all of us are sitting here today wondering what has happened with Pikangikum and what's happening. We continue to work with the first nation and the elders. Just to give you some context, when you go into the community--and I know Roger Valley and other people who have been there can probably attest to this--it's really driven by the elders. You walk in and sit at a table like this, and all around the whole room are about 40 to 50 elders who are anywhere from their seventies to their early hundreds. It's just phenomenal the passion and the energy these elders have in terms of really wanting to drive this community forward and make it a better place for the people who live in Pikangikum.
I attended the community for three full days. Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and I have really been personally active on the file, and we spent three full days with representatives of Health Canada and the tribal council, working with the community to try to get the community engaged in an action plan and moving forward.
You'll see through this presentation that many of the elders were concerned that when media and different people talk about Pikangikum, they talk about the poverty and the hunger and the negative things about Pikangikum, not the really positive things. For example, even though their school is not adequate for that community, it's a top-notch program. There are fabulous teachers. They have a principal with a master's degree. They have excellent economic development opportunities. They have a huge forestry project that has the potential of employing over 300 people. They have six fly-in fishing camps. When people think about Pikangikum, I think it's very important to think about the positive things of Pikangikum. So we will stick with and honour that commitment that we made to the leadership.
We went in on December 14, and it was a real eye-opener for me. I don't know if you've ever been into a northern community, but you fly in. There's no other access except for winter road access in the winter. But there's a really good, positive energy within Pikangikum in terms of really wanting to make things better.
A delegation from the community also had the opportunity to meet with the parliamentary secretary, Rod Bruinooge, in Dryden on January 18, and there was an announcement. They're so passionate about their Whitefeather Forest project, and the government has invested significant dollars over the years in this project. There was another announcement of $560,000 for this project in Dryden.
Last week I spent some time with Minister Prentice, and he actually personally spoke on the phone to Chief Pascal from Pikangikum and committed to visiting the community on April 10. So that date's firm and set and we'll all be going in. I'm meeting with Pikangikum next week, and we're going to really make sure we have a solid presentation to present to the minister when he visits the community, and I think the parliamentary secretary is also going to be joining us on that trip.
Aside from all of those things, we've also been working really diligently with Pikangikum around their capital and infrastructure and energy and their funding and education aspects.
We've made significant announcements around Pikangikum and commitments in our long-term capital plan. We have budgeted for over $40 million over five years, which will put in their grid line and get power into the community, bring running water, and build a new school.
Just to give some context, without the electrification and the power, the other things can't happen. You can't connect the school without the power. You can't connect the water without the power. That's really a priority we have with Pikangikum and the tribal council right now, to really work hard with the Minister of Energy and the province and Hydro One Remote Communities in getting that power line up and running.
The first nation also hired an independent facilitator to support the community and to help in the development of this action plan and to coordinate with all of the different governments or agencies that need to be involved in these projects. So the first nation is doing that in terms of their capacity.
What I'm going to really strongly recommend to them is that they put out terms of reference for an independent individual engineer and project manager, because this is a huge amount of infrastructure that's going to happen within the next few years, so it is really key that they have somebody organizing and steering along this development. As I said, the adequate energy supply is absolutely paramount. Without energy you can't do any of the other projects that need to happen.
A real progress for us, for people within the department, was all the parties agreeing finally to connect Pikangikum to Ontario's power grid, with Hydro One operating the system. There was some debate about whether the first nation wanted to operate it themselves or whether they wanted to have a third party like Hydro One operate it. That was real progress, from our perspective. Since then, INAC staff have been in regular contact with Ontario's Ministry of Energy, highlighting issues connecting to off-grid diesel generation, because that's what they're operating on right now. Also, Pikangikum has been in contact with Ontario's Hydro One Networks to seek their support and assistance. It's quite complex connecting to a hydro line.
We've also approved $246,000 to work to restart the grid connection project as quickly as possible. The first nation has hired a consultant who was working on the project in the past. There was some work done over the last few years, so there are some poles, and some of the preliminary work and design work has been done. We're working on upgrading that design work to make sure that is going to work properly for that community.
In the meantime, their existing diesel generators weren't operating the way they should have been, so we made some commitments of up to $2 million in December around upgrading their diesel generators to make sure they have enough power until the power lines are able to go in. That work is under way. It is almost actually completed, but it's still a work-in-progress. It's estimated that, just for the grid connection, it will probably be another $14 million to actually connect the grid line.
Probably within a two-year timeframe the community will have power, which is really exciting stuff for them. You meet with the elders and that's what they talk about. Their dream is to have proper power, a proper school, and running water in that community.
In terms of the school, right now the school is really inadequate in terms of the facility, but in the programs there are dynamic teachers in that community and it is a vibrant place to visit. They have a really great shop class and they're teaching electrical skills to some of the high school students who are there. It's a really great program, but the facility is really inadequate. It's a real priority to get that school up and running concurrently. Out of the $40 million commitment, the school is a portion of that. What we've done is we've facilitated one of the major financial institutions to go into the community to talk about what financing might look like in order to accelerate some of these projects. We have long-term capital plan financial dollars committed over five years, but the community doesn't want to wait five years to have a school built. We need to look at other options to be able to facilitate that, so that when the hydro line comes up, the school will be built and it can be connected, and everything can happen simultaneously.
In terms of water and waste water, based on the power situation, it's impossible to get running water throughout that community right now. We've done some short-term repairs and upgrades to make sure that their existing water--they do have a water treatment plant, but the houses are not connected. There's a teacherage and a school that are connected. We provided $942,000 to repair the water points of entry. There are points of entry around the community from the water treatment plant, and the community members go to these points of entry and fill up their water containers to bring water back to their homes. So we worked on replacing a lot of those containers to make sure they're sanitary and on replacing all the points of entry for the water.
In terms of housing, what's really, really important right now for Pikangikum is that a capital planning study be prepared, because you can't just go and build houses anywhere. You need to plan where the new water treatment facilities will go, where the school is going to go, how the power lines are going to go. Right now they have terms of reference completed, and they've actually shared that with me, so we're going to be finalizing that next Tuesday in Sioux Lookout. Really, to get a capital planning study to talk about where all these things are going to go--where's the building going to go, how is it going to work--is really key in terms of future housing.
We have made commitments. We provide a minor capital allocation to the community so that they can build roads and houses, or whatever they see fit, within their community. They can use up to $660,000 a year for housing. Recently as well there's been a loan to the first nation from CMHC to build some additional housing. There is serious overcrowding within that community. Their living conditions are unacceptable, so we need to work diligently in making sure that there is power and water and adequate shelter for the members of Pikangikum. The annualized capital funding that we do provide to the community is $1.34 million for capital work. I just want to share that as well.
I think that's basically it in terms of the technical work. As you can see, we've been working like crazy for the last two months making sure this is addressed.
I just want to share that I haven't spent a lot of time in the department, but I'm really quite overwhelmed and pleased by how, from the minister to the deputy minister to the receptionists who work within the department, everybody is really committed to improving the quality of life for the members of Pikangikum. It's the government and all of you sitting at the table as well. I'm really, really pleased as a first nations person to see that the Government of Canada is standing up and paying attention to the community members who live in Pikangikum.
I'd like to thank you very much for your time, and if you have any questions, please feel free.