Evidence of meeting #119 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was home.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry, but we only have so many minutes and we have a speakers list. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have to move on to MP Kevin Waugh.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Thank you all for being here today.
I have a question for either Ms. Harvey or Ms. Larouche.
You mentioned you had an elder centre that holds 20. On average, how long would your patients be in this centre? You did give us some numbers for aged people in your community. In 2001, there were 155, and 10 years later, you're at 240. You're lucky that you have a centre that holds 20, but how long would the average patient be there?
Director, Health and Community Wellness, Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan
It can vary from a few days to a few years. It depends on the elder's health.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Are you under a boil water advisory? What's the water on your reserve like for this?
Director, Health and Community Wellness, Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan
We have drinking water.
Conseil de la nation Atikamekw
Our three communities have good water all the time. We had a couple of issues last year in one of the communities, but there was nothing very big about it. In general, we have very good water in our community.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
There's something that I give you credit for, and we really haven't talked about it. We all want our elders to stay home, but we haven't talked about what that home looks like. You did touch on it—ramps, lifts and so on. That's very important, yet we really haven't peeled the onion here and looked at the situation for any of these long-term facilities. It's very expensive. We all know it's double or triple the cost when putting in these ramps and lifts. I don't know where the resources come from. Do you see any light at the end of the tunnel?
Conseil de la nation Atikamekw
Light? I see a light, but it's 60 years behind.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Do you know what I'm saying? If you're going to restore a home, it can be into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Conseil de la nation Atikamekw
That's true, but I have a certain vision for my people.
Atikamekw nation is a great example. We represent three communities with 8,000 people. Our language is very strong and distinct. Our culture is still very strong in our communities. We still practise our activities on our land.
One thing that was broken was the self-esteem, the pride. Now I'm in my second mandate; I just got re-elected. In my first mandate I can say I worked really hard on being proud of who we are, being proud of our identity, being proud to be first nation, being proud of being Atikamekw Nehirowisiw. That's what I work on.
I think that's the first step in any society—to work on this, on being proud of who they are and who they belong to. From there we work really hard also on making the youth believe that they are the answer to the future. We work really hard on that. I have no problem when a school calls me. I go there and I speak to their youth and I tell them how much I believe in them, how much I need them to ensure continuity, to ensure prosperity, to ensure that we're going to still speak our language in 100 years, to ensure we're going to still practise our culture in 100 years.
“I need you.” That's what I tell them. It's about working on this.
We have amelioration. There are more and more people who go to school now. They're finishing their education. That's how it is, and after that we're going to get stronger infrastructure. We need more infrastructure, but we're going to have stronger administrative people in health, in education, in administration, in governance, and from there we're going to grow and grow.
My light is 60 years ahead. That's where I'm looking, but we have to start at the beginning, and we need the support of the government for this. I need the government to believe in our people. That's what I need today.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I was just wondering if you wanted to elaborate on my colleague's.... He started to answer your question. Maybe you want to carry on with that questioning.
For myself, number one, I thought your opening remarks about your grandfather were very compelling. I certainly have seen first-hand with my grandmother the challenges that we face as a family in allowing her to stay within her home for the last five years, which was her decision. It was her dream to stay in her home. We were able to do that, but it took significant resources from a very large family, so I can see it would be very difficult for a small family to maintain that.
What do you think would be best practices or the most concrete things that we could do in a short amount of time to speed up the length of time between where you feel services are and where they should be?
Conseil de la nation Atikamekw
Yes, there's a significantly larger amount of money available in certain programs, but what I face on a regular basis is.... Let's say we prepare for a project and we bring a project to some program. We always hear “Yes, it's a beautiful project” and “Yes, your project is qualified”, but what we always have to face is that maintenance funding doesn't come with that program.
Yes, we can build this and we can do that, but in the future we're going to have to pay salaries. No budget for operations comes with programs when we try to do something. That's what I've been facing lately with certain projects.
Let's say I want to work with youth, because I believe in our youth and I put a lot of effort to work with them. I say I'm going to create a secretariat for youth affairs within our nation. I had two big meetings where I gathered 80 youth from our three communities, and we spoke about our future. We spoke about many topics, from our language to politics to geopolitics, and about what's going on around the world, what's it going to be in 50 years, and how we have to believe in ourselves.
I submit a project, and the government is very happy with all those steps we're taking. It goes with the framework of the program, but after we create a secretariat, how are we going to make it function? That's the problem we're facing with many programs. We don't have the money in our communities to make things happen.
Like I said, we're starting out. That's how I look at it. We try to raise additional funds internally, autonomously, for those kinds of projects, but we are not there yet.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Very good.
I think we all really appreciated your comments, your passion and vision. I want to thank you for coming to see us at this committee. We only have a few minutes. To those via teleconference, thank you so much for attending. I know it was difficult. We wish the video conference had worked.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for staying online. We'll take a short break, and then we'll go in camera for committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]