Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

If you could maybe sum up, Mr. Blondin, that would be great.

[Ted Blondin]

Okay.

There also seems to be a real lack of opportunity in the way that when larger companies come into town, there seems to be conflict with local development, opportunities for local people to really advance. Bigger companies come in as a joint venture, and because we're the local people they use our name to get the contracts. Again, as Charles has indicated, we're usually in there as the labourers.

In terms of resources, there don't seem to be enough business support services, particularly in the smaller communities. There seems to be a lack in the budgets or financial knowledge of what's out there. There seems to be also a lack of business support in small communities and a real lack of networking in terms of the partnerships that can be built up so we can take advantage of the many opportunities that are available for us.

I'll conclude with that, and I'll take on any questions the committee may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blondin.

We'll now proceed to questions from members. We'll begin the first round of questions and we'll start with Mr. Russell for five minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening to each of you. Thank you very much for bringing your unique perspectives to this committee. It's certainly helping to fill in the picture, give it a bit more depth, more colour, we'll say, in terms of this particular study. I thank you for that.

I want to be clear about a fact, because I listened very closely to Ms. Cherwaty's presentation. Our notes tell us that the unemployment rate is 6%, down from 2001 at 8.6%. That is from the NWT Bureau of Statistics. Your presentation says 33%. I'd simply like to know, because one thing we've heard here is about the lack of human capital, that businesses are searching for individuals who are skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled. We need to understand a little bit more where that figure comes from. If we look at the lack of labour or skilled trades or what have you as a barrier and we want to make recommendations, then we need to know where we're coming from on that.

Then I want to turn my attention and extend a welcome to Mr. Pokiak. I think hunting and trapping is not something people often think about when we think about economic development. Of course it is a vital and dynamic part of the north, and certainly I know what it contributes to a lot of families and communities in Labrador, where I come from. I want you to give us a bit more of a sense of how important these types of activities and the activities represented by your council or your committee are to the lives of northerners, particularly aboriginal peoples in the NWT.

I'll start with Ms. Cherwaty and then Mr. Pokiak.

[Mary Lou Cherwaty]

Thank you very much.

What I was trying to get across was that the statistics the bureau shows are actually the unemployment rate. There are a vast number of residents who fall under what they call “not in the labour force”. What happens is that when someone's unemployed, after a year they fall off the unemployment numbers. If they're not deemed to be looking for work, they go into another category called “not in the labour force”.

I've taken those two numbers together and said, okay, out of all NWT residents, there are actually 33% who are not working. They're unemployed, for a variety of reasons. What happens, generally, in that larger number is that they've given up looking for work. They don't have the skills, or they can't find employment. Especially in our smaller communities, there are so few actual jobs that those numbers are a lot higher. But they don't actually fall under Statistics Canada or Bureau of Statistics figures as unemployed.

I hope that answers the question.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

It answers the question.

I'm not sure. Can we say that someone who is not actively looking for work is unemployed? A stay-at-home mom is still valuable, or a stay-at-home dad, for that matter. They serve a valuable function to their family and their community just staying at home. Would you consider them to be part of your 33%?

[Mary Lou Cherwaty]

Yes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Okay. I just wanted to make that point clear.

Mr. Pokiak.

[Charles Pokiak]

There's a program called Take a Kid Trapping, and it worked successfully last year. A couple of elders take at least five to six or ten kids, if they have the means, out for a week or two weeks. This shows them a little part of what they endured when they were younger, when they used to trap full-time.

Now these guys are retired from trapping. We got some funding through ENR and through our hunters and trappers committee, and we give them a little bit of funding to go out to buy the gas and the groceries, and we hire them. It works successfully. They got a few caribou, even though our caribou numbers are down. They're allowed to take two or three, just to show them how to work on a whole caribou and take everything from the caribou without wasting. That helped in the past.

On the healing, there was a program on that a couple of years back. The TCC and the hunters and trappers put some funding aside. What I'm trying to get at is the healing process for the guys or the girls who went to residential schools. They had a program with them. There were about 30 applicants. They went out and they got a caribou each for elders and for mothers with no husbands. All that meat from the caribou, everything, went towards that program.

These programs are really vital. You haven't seen some guys go out in 30 years. You know, they're homeless. They just wander around. Sometimes they don't know what to do. But they had a chance to go out on the land as they did when they were kids, when they had a chance with their parents. Some of their parents are gone. The grandparents who taught them are gone. It really revitalized the positive side. You see these guys, and they're carrying that on. They want to make an effort.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Russell.

You have the floor, Mr. Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Mr. Atamanenko, as Quebeckers and as a minority in Canada, we have been staunch advocates of exporting our culture and knowledge to countries abroad. We have opposed funding initiatives to import foreign culture. I'm wondering whether, as a resident of a remote territory—one could even say isolated, at times—you share our position.

[Boris Atamanenko]

Monsieur, that's a very deep question.

I think the arts council's mandate is really to serve northerners first, in the north. What they're seeing as a trend, especially in smaller communities, is people seeing a potential source of income through their art and they need to reach beyond territorial borders in order to find those markets. So the arts council, while it can't support the marketing side--it's not its mandate--certainly wants to encourage people to become the best they can in their skill and find the audiences or markets where they may be able to.

I don't think it's a question of sending people away from home. It's been explained by some of the other presenters how people may study down south, return to their communities, and then even give back to the community what they've learned.

If I'm understanding the question correctly, in terms of exporting what we have outside, the arts council really believes in developing this within the territories and celebrating that first, for northerners to access. But certainly it doesn't want to shut the doors to people who see development opportunities for themselves through art as business.

Merci.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

It amounts to the same thing. If you want to export you craft as well as your talent, you have to be known abroad.

Ms. Cherwaty, I have been involved with the labour movement and I represent the riding of Abitibi—James Bay—Nunavik—Eeyou. There are first nations members and Inuit living in my region who refuse to be identified with first nations.

In terms of a region's human resources, there are ordinary workers who follow their leaders' instructions, and there are also people who lead the way. I don't know if that's the case in your region, but when massive layoffs or work shortages occur, workers tend to leave the region to look for employment. If workers belong to an association, they tend to withdraw their involvement for lack of financial resources.

The Bloc Québécois is calling for the elimination of wait periods when a person loses his job, so that in the first few weeks of unemployment, he would be able to look for another job. Currently, that is not the case because workers lack the financial resources to embark on a job search. We are asking that the qualifying period for benefits be set at 360 hours, that the maximum insurable earnings level increase from $39,000 per year to $47,000 per year and that the benefit rate be increased to 60%.

Would initiatives like this help your region to hold on to its current workforce and encourage businesses to stay put? When businesses lose workers, they tend to want to relocate in order to maintain a skilled workforce. I'd like to hear your views on this subject.

[Mary Lou Cherwaty]

Thank you very much.

Absolutely, 360 hours should be a Canadian national number. The Canadian labour movement has been calling for this for many years. And we fully support the Bloc's position on that number.

The other part I was trying to get at in the EI benefits area is that we don't have enough indexing in the north. So even if we eliminated the waiting period, which is a great idea, and reduced the number of hours to qualify, the qualifying amount--the benefits the person who's unemployed actually receives--isn't enough to live on in the north. That number has to somehow be indexed as well, if possible.

The first two you mentioned are great first step measures. But I think we also need to look--if that doesn't improve retaining qualified workers in the north--at why that is and perhaps look at indexing, as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque, Ms. Cherwaty and Mr. Atamanenko.

You have five minutes Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to everyone for coming out tonight and supporting this effort, which is quite a large study that we're doing on this committee. I'm sure our chairman will sum it up for us after a while.

There are a lot of questions I could ask.

To the Mine Training Society, the conditions of mine work in the north are such that you generally have to leave your home to travel. You're away for two weeks and home for two. That's the model we've developed. What's your estimation on that? Is it working, and is it attractive to people?

[Ted Blondin]

We'll do this in two parts.

When BHP first came on the scene and the two-week-in and two-week-out issue was tried, during the very first year of operation eight relationships in our community broke up. That caused problems in the community, because this was something that was not normal. But over time people got used to it, and it's now becoming fairly normal. People are younger and starting to become more mobile now, and the jobs are a very important part of our lives. We're affected, so we have to take advantage and make sure we derive as many benefits as possible.

[Hilary Jones, General Manager, Mine Training Society]

I can follow up on that.

Dr. Ginger Gibson actually did a longitudinal study on the effects of two-and-two on remote communities for the Tlicho government. Her findings indicated that in order to be successful as a miner in one of the camps there were three things that had to be done. First of all, the miner had to be strong like two people—strong in his or her own culture, but also strong in the culture of the mine. Secondly, the partner left behind had to be strong like two people, because at that point they are two people to the family. They are the mother and the father. Having the skill sets to be able to manage the household and all the challenges, especially in a remote community, with having to do the budgeting and the wood chopping and everything else, is important.

Also important is that officials of large corporations have to do a complete mind change, because they have to be strong for the two people. They have to understand that the definition of family in the north, in our communities, is completely different from what you'll find in the south. If an elder dies in the community, you are expected to go to the funeral. People will quit their employment if they can't get time to go to a funeral, because the community is your family. Having our mines understand that has been a challenge. So you talk about economic development...even for people who are employed, it's a matter of culture. You do not deny your family.

There are some challenges there, but we are working with our trainees, helping them to develop those skill sets so that when they do go away to the mine, at least there is some thought given back to the community.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Pokiak, we've seen the changes in the caribou herds in the last couple of years and the restrictions on hunting. For the committee, and for everyone, could you describe how important subsistence hunting is to a community like Tuktoyaktuk?

[Charles Pokiak]

For the past few years now, we have been setting boundaries. When I was growing up, our elders always talked about no boundaries, making lines on land where we could go. It was 400 miles in each direction that they wanted to go to share with each community, even going as far as the Sahtu, if they had to. If they were out of caribou, they could come onto our land and hunt for the elders and for themselves, because caribou is really vital there.

And with the price of beef.... For instance, a T-bone steak is about $40. A box of shells is $40 to $50, on average. With that one box, you could maybe average five to ten caribou, and that would feed a lot of families, where one T-bone could only feed one person.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I have to be a better shopper.

[Charles Pokiak]

A lot of our elders have learned from government.

To get to Dennis's point, it's vital and it's our way of life. When we get one or more caribou we'll share it with the community and the people who can't afford to go out. They might help with gas, and that's one way to help out to go out on the land.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak and Mr. Bevington. I appreciate that.

We'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming here this evening. It is certainly appreciated.

A lot of things I'm going to say come from a personal point of view, because each of your organizations I have some type of association with.

First of all, Mr. Atamanenko, my wife was a board member for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, so I've had a number of years of going to museums and theatre and seeing the work that artists do, which is part of what I have here to take home for her. I also understand the multiplier effect that there is for arts funding and the importance of it for arts and culture in the community.

I'd like to ask, first of all, if you feel you have the resources to assist your members to benefit from the tourism dollars that are coming into your community.

[Boris Atamanenko]

The arts council has been fortunate in the last couple of years, in that the Government of the Northwest Territories has increased its resources to deliver on requests from artists and organizations in the communities. Arts and tourism is an interesting one, and certainly many would see the opportunity for perhaps sharing the culture with visitors to the NWT.

On the tourism question, is it about showing our best in artistic talent to visitors, or is it about exports?