Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 19th, 2019

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

Again, I'm speaking for myself only. I get funding from Indigenous Services Canada to the tune of $52,000 a year because I'm in the reserve lands and environment management program, the RLEMP. But my first nation contributes over $100,000 to my office budget from own-source revenues, and a lot of those own-source revenues are from leasing—business developments and what have you. In terms of my whole budget, more than two-thirds comes from within my own first nation.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

You talked about the three different types of regimes. As a land manager, can you compare and contrast some of the positives and negatives of the three regimes?

[Albert Marshall Jr.]

With regard to the positives and negatives of the three land regimes, my first nation is under the reserve lands and environment management program, the RLEMP. For us—I can't speak for any regime other than this one—it's very challenging when it comes to doing business on reserve when you're under the act. But it's not impossible. We have great support, especially through NALMA. It doesn't matter which land regime you're in, we're always helping each other regardless of the situation.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

I'm sorry. We have run out of time on that question period.

We move on to MP Rachel Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. Thank you so much for your presentations.

One of my first questions goes to the two of you. You said that the program has graduated 175 certified land managers across the country. I know a lot of indigenous communities are rural and remote, and sometimes getting the training to those communities can be a real challenge.

Can you talk about the models you have used, and how you have partnered? You said you were in Victoria. I'm curious about how you're working with indigenous communities to make sure those folks get trained.

[Albert Marshall Jr.]

When you're a member of NALMA, you get notification of training opportunities and network opportunities.

As I said, NALMA has partnered with Algoma and Victoria, but we're also looking into possibly partnering with Cape Breton University.

When it comes to training and opportunities like that, if somebody is not a member of our association, and if I know they are a land manager, or in that field, I reach out to them and tell them we're here to offer support and networking and training opportunities for members and non-members.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

It was also mentioned in the testimonies that one of the challenges is accessing training close to home, which can be a barrier to career growth, especially for women.

I would like some clarity about those barriers specifically for women.

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

I think a lot of it has to do with young families, children at home. As we all know, if you have children and you don't have a decent income, it's hard to get help. If you don't have a big family, it's hard to get help.

With regard to training and education, you're leaving home for extended periods of time, and it impacts not only the mother and child situation, but the family dynamic as well, because as we all know, especially with young families, to be away from your children for an extended period of time to go to a training program is not a healthy thing. You want to be home, and you want to be nurturing and raising your children on a daily basis, as opposed to a part-time basis.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much.

All of you talked a lot about capacity-building and looking at the challenges you're facing in terms of autonomy. I think that's important to talk about, especially when you talk about the revenue. Earlier, you talked about your department and your community putting two-thirds of the revenue into it.

Can all three of you talk about what sort of capacity-building you need in communities and those specific challenges? What do you think the federal government could assist with in opening some of those opportunities and doors for communities?

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

With regard to capacity-building, I will go back to what I said earlier about the fact that only one first nations land manager is funded per community. If you expanded on that, not only would you have the capacity, but you would have—

People like to have variety in their lives. Being a land manager is a great position. It's a good job, but we can't expect people to be there for 20, 25 or 30 years. Often people have 10 careers in a lifetime.

For example, I've been a land manager for my first nation for seven years. Hopefully, I'm in a position now where I can bring somebody on board to train and get them into the programs—to pass the professional land management certification program and the indigenous peoples' resource management program—so they could be certified land managers and I could be gone in three years to do something else.

This is one of six careers I've had myself, and I'm ready to move on. I'm not saying it hasn't been a good seven years. I just think it's time for somebody younger to take over that responsibility. Also, we need those additional resources to train and educate the next generation of land managers.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Melanie, do you want to add anything?

[Melanie Debassige]

The field that I work in is very specific. We're looking for people with specific technical backgrounds. Most of the time we're looking for engineers or people who are in the water operator industry.

The difficultly we have is that there aren't a lot of internship or co-operative programs to foster indigenous students to go to school, and then also to support them while they're doing their hours working toward their P.Eng. A lot of them have young families to support, but at the same time they want to have a professional career. The people who go into these professional careers are going to go back into their communities. They're going to work. They're going to provide services. They're going to be building water treatment centres, building infrastructure—schools, roads. They're going to be providing oversight on all of those projects.

I feel that's one of the biggest challenges we have, the lack of continued support throughout that process. Through the funding that we get through Indigenous Services Canada, we do the best we can to spread that money so that we can support youth programs. At the same time, we have to take one piece from here so that we can deliver over here, and there is not a lot of wiggle room.

That's one of the largest challenges we have, to get people into those technical careers. Becoming an engineer is not an easy task. It takes a lot of dedication, a lot of hard work, and it takes the support of a community to do that.

Within OFNTSC, we provide a scholarship and bursaries to first nation students, but how far will $2,500 go? You can't stretch that dollar too far. I find that in the role I'm in right now, that's one of the biggest challenges.

We all know what the water crisis is here in Ontario. OFNTSC prides itself on removing boil water advisories. We removed one last week from Windigo First Nation. We do that work and we pride ourselves.... That's what we build the organization on, that we can deliver these services.

Again, we have people who are retiring, and we don't have people moving into those fields of work because they are very technically advanced. You have to have a specific skill set to do that work. You can't just put somebody into that kind of work, because it's not only scientific, but also technical.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

I'm fortunate to have a bit of time to ask you some questions.

I would like to explore your comments about women and their ability to become land managers. Let's get down to the numbers. How many land managers are female—what percentage?

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

I can't answer that, but in terms of when we were going to school, most in the classroom were women, in the professional land management certification program. With regard to our Saskatchewan aboriginal land technicians, I'd say it's quite even, at about 50%. The people who come to our conferences and to our community gatherings or meetings or what have you, a lot of them are women.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

So 50% of land managers on reserves are women.

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

I can't give you that specific absolute number.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Approximately.

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

That's from what I've seen in Saskatchewan. I can't speak for the whole country.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

I think that's pretty commendable. You're beating Canada's average.

You also mentioned the obligations for family and children. If a person wants to be a land manager, what kind of child support or wraparound services are available?

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

There are none. You basically leave your community. You go out, get an education, or go get the training for a few weeks, or however long it takes, and then you come back.

In my case, I had to leave my child behind to go out and then come back. It's a good thing he recognized me when I came back.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Is that a satisfactory system, or would you like to see additional wraparound services?

We're doing a report and we're trying to identify barriers. I'm not saying that we're able to provide it, but at least we'd know what the most significant problems are.

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

With regard to NALMA, their funding is strictly geared towards students going out to get an education, to get that training. They pay for their going there and back and for hotels, rooms, meals and what have you. Their training sessions are held all over the country.

For example, there might be a program happening on the east coast or in B.C. or in all parts in between. Let's say there's a training program happening in Saskatoon. Anybody from Saskatchewan can go to that. It's close, basically. It's home. It's in their backyard, but for somebody coming in from Quebec or B.C., it's quite a stretch to get there, even though it's for a short period of time. The training programs aren't that long. Oftentimes, they're a couple of weeks long, but still, it's a couple of weeks of the child care services that are provided and whatnot.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

That's right.

[Theodore Johnny Merasty]

If they were provided right in their home community, maybe that would be different, but then you're not going to have 25 students from the same community taking the same training program, because there are just not going to be 25 jobs for them when they're done.