Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

We're moving questioning to MP Georgina Jolibois.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'm going back to teacher retention.

Thank you, I really appreciate this.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Adrian Walraven]

Self service.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I want to focus on how can we improve. I know we're asking the same question, but I'd like to spend more time on this. It disturbed me what I heard earlier about teachers' qualifications. Within the provincial system, the teachers follow standards and they have a teacher's licence. Don't reserve teachers have the same standards? Do they have the same qualification?

[Adrian Walraven]

Madam Chair, as I think you've heard me say, across the country there are different local conditions, and so in terms of teacher retention the local context matters in determining what strategies we pursue in partnership with first nations.

Our program, in working with first nations, requires teachers in first nations classrooms on reserve to be certified teachers. I think the crux of your question, however, is how we can better support that, especially in remote and isolated communities. How can we better support that retention objective? I think if you speak with our first nations partners, part of the mix, or at least one of the foundational issues to address, is funding. To be able to properly incentivize and pay equity-plus-type teacher benefits is a key part of the mix in increasing retention.

There are other more complicated but equally important issues in housing, overall community well-being, and the kinds of things that make people not just want to be professionals in the classroom and in their professional lives, but also to be vibrant members of the community.

You have to look at that holistically, and those are the types of conversations we are trying to have, with a particular emphasis on the unique needs of northern, remote and isolated communities.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

This is the last question I want to ask. I'm assuming you weren't able to have that discussion with the previous government. Is the current government, the Liberals, open to having that discussion, to looking at that, in your opinion?

[Adrian Walraven]

I think it's important to mention that budget 2016 was a game-changer, in the sense that it provided unprecedented investments that enabled us to provide the types of base, core funding I've been talking about today. Our objective now in conversation is to not rest on our laurels and talk about that being sufficient in terms of funding, but to talk about funding sufficiency in terms of how we tailor it to the local and regional context, and how we tailor it to specific first nations priorities for where they want to go.

Certainly, teacher retention and recruitment is one of those key priorities. There are active strategies across the country that try to address this, and our conversations with first nations partners is going to be one of talking about how we can reinforce that financially and non-financially.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I want to go back to access to clean water. I find it disturbing that the government is currently talking about its success rate in lifting the advisories. That is very disturbing for the people on the ground who don't have clean water to drink, to wash with, and to live by.

As to avoiding short-term water advisories, every week I get an update from two of the tribal councils in my riding saying that these reserves are now back on water advisory. How can the government, or the department, be truthful and look at this? This will go into the Liberal side, and if the Conservatives are ever back in government—

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

October.

[Georgina Jolibois, NDP, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

—they will have to take a look at this. How can we improve this altogether?

[Claudia Ferland]

You're correct. We still have to do a lot of work to do on the water front.

One of the things we believe in is investing in training, while ensuring that water facilities are properly maintained and will continue to provide water for the community members.

We know that many first nations across Canada experience challenges with the operation, the maintenance, the size of the water systems, and where they're located. This is why—going back to the purpose of this committee—we're investing in training and retention of individuals, in addition to putting in systems that work for communities so that we don't fall into making it too long-term. We want everybody to have clean water.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Mr. Bossio.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Speaking and following-up on what Mr. Waugh had to say earlier, has anybody at Natural Resources explored a company in B.C. called Carbon Engineering?

Carbon Engineering is taking carbon from the atmosphere and converting it into a synthetic gas that can be burned in almost any engine, including aircraft engines and the like. To me, that would be an ideal solution for remote communities where, if you were able to set up one of these facilities, they could produce their own energy without having to ship it up north. Therefore, it is 100% carbon neutral, because you're actually taking carbon that's already been emitted into the atmosphere.

[John Kozij]

I have heard of Carbon Engineering. I will admit that our programming is built upon deployment. When I say “deployment”, if diesel generation has done anything, it's being durable. In northern communities, where it's cold and where that's their only power source and heating source, you have to have a durable solution. It's not the time to put experimental solutions in those remote communities.

Our goal has been to deploy proven technologies on the biomass side, wind, geo-thermal and solar in those communities, and to create a constellation of efforts, so that when those diesel systems are near the end of their running life, people will have the opportunity to see examples of clean energy deployment across the country that have worked. They can then make decisions when to replace diesel generators and move to a clean energy solution.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I would hope that you would be considering any of these new technologies. They've got an operating plant in B.C. that is generating quite a bit of fuel right now. I realize it may not be at the level, but is that not part of the purpose of government, to try to accelerate and be the catalyst for these projects to move forward?

[John Kozij]

I completely agree with you. We have a scope of different initiatives that are willing to invest in both pilot and demo-scale initiatives, and look at other clean energy alternatives. For the CERRC program, we're going with durable solutions, so that communities can keep the lights and heat on when they need to.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Finally, on capacity-building, in Haida Gwaii you have the Watchmen; in the Northwest Territories you have the rangers, and there are guardians across the country.

Are you taking advantage of these three programs to expand them as far as driving forward capacity around environmental controls, project management and oversight of different natural resource sectors are concerned?

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus]

Yes, we are. That's part of this new sector that we've developed, which, as I mentioned earlier, I'm leading. We're working with partners to talk about these areas. The guardians have come up quite a lot as a model and they would like to pursue these issues in other areas. Again, that's part of our co-development on the way forward with our indigenous partners.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Brilliant. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

That concludes our time at this committee. I appreciate everyone's attendance.

The meeting is adjourned.