Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 21st, 2017

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

I think any of the innovations that have been advanced in terms of being able to monitor how fire.... I don't think people have a good understanding of how fire can change direction and move very quickly based on the environmental conditions. I think education is obviously one of them, but a lot of the young people are already volunteering and that needs to be pushed more.

The young people definitely require support in terms of training for emergency response. That goes not just for wildfires but it also goes for flooding. They're a part of that because they know their families. There would have to be a chain of communication and that already exists within the community.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Is there any way we can link them up with organizations like the Red Cross that provide help during fires? They could have some training sessions with them. Is that a possibility?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

I think we could link them up to each other and have them support one another. I don't think we need to have people coming in from outside to tell them that this is how it needs to happen. They know what needs to happen and they just need to be resourced properly.

The only reason that the Manitoba Association of Native Firefighters really suffered was that they were taking on an issue that they didn't have the capacity to deal with. They were dealing with the 2011 floods. That's really what it came down to. The resources to respond to that were just too high and it was never addressed, but they still had to own the debt of the work that they did. That's when you'd see problems with MANF in terms of their accounting, all that kind of stuff. We see that across the board on every file.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

One of the most important things about an emergency management plan is the resettlement of the affected communities following the resolution of the emergency. Could you share with us the process that is followed as far as resettlement strategies in the wake of an emergency are concerned?

What sort of ongoing follow-up inspections and inquiries are made to ensure that communities are brought back to a pre-disaster living state or better than that?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

What they do is they assess the community and what, whether it was a fire or a flood, the impact on the community was. They do an inventory of what would exist in the community and whether or not the community is prepared to go back to the community. That's part of the whole process, but the chief and the council plan with the emergency team, whoever that is, and then they look at timelines and the resources and all the different things that you are going to need in order to move all of the members back into that community, who is going to do it.

Also, you have to look at when you're removed from the community where you're going to stay. In this instance, we had thousands of our people at the RBC centre. They were on cots. Many of our elders were on cots. The province at the time, we believe, should have declared a state of emergency to open up hotels for our elders, so that our elders were not staying in big large dorms. It's things like that the community had very big concerns with in terms of having all of its young people in a big huge facility.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

We know that as of January 2017 INAC has emergency management agreements in place for a number of provinces and territories, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, P.E.I., Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. We have heard about how effective and robust they are.

Can you speak to what challenges have arisen in Manitoba with the attempts to put some formal agreements in place?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

Who are you talking about? Robust--

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

The agreements that we have with other provinces to deal with the effective management of the.... We don't have an agreement with Manitoba.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

We don't have one with Manitoba but we are working toward that and we're working toward that in partnership with the municipalities as well. We're working with everybody on all sides. We've met with them and we're meeting with them again. What we're pushing for is to have a coordinated response across the whole region.

What we want to do also is push for a more volunteer-based approach as well through agreements with many of our treaty partners who are off reserve.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

The questioning now moves to Kevin Waugh.

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

Welcome, all three of you.

Yes, Manitoba doesn't have an emergency agreement.

As you said, Chief Daniels, you're looking at a model in Manitoba. Are you looking outside of Manitoba at what works and what didn't work in Alberta, Saskatchewan, or wherever? What are the discussions around that? We can talk and talk. Every year you'll have either a flood or a fire, and we never learn from it. What would this look like, if you do change in Manitoba?

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

What would it look like?

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

Yes. What would this policy look like?

We have emergency services provided in Alberta and Saskatchewan. You don't, really, in Manitoba. You don't have an agreement.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

Yes.

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

What would the agreement look like? You're obviously being consulted.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

I think it would start off with a protocol between the existing agencies that are within the municipalities as well, and we'd want to communicate back and forth. All agencies that are part of an emergency response need to have a protocol for communication, first of all. There's no way for us to know what's happening down the river or on the other side of the fire front if we don't have those kinds of things. Also, there's the technical capacity to monitor from an elevated position for forest fires. Those kinds of things are also.... I'm not aware of where we have that ability, and so I know we have to partner with the province and other agencies that are already doing this work.

The IRTC is one of the tribal councils. They're the ones who are really pushing for the command centres. We've been supporting them, but I know they've reached out to one of the....

[Chief Lance Roulette]

Saskatchewan communities....

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

Yes. But we are looking at best practices, I can tell you that.

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

The command centre is interesting. How much money does it take? Have you thought about the command centre? We've heard the fire marshal aspect of it. Now you've come here and said that you want a command centre. How much money are we talking about?

In terms of the control of it, this is something new. We have not heard this in our briefings with any first nation group that has come here. All of a sudden you've thrown in this command centre that would be regulated by Public Safety, which is a different organization. You know where I'm coming from on federal bureaucracy. All of a sudden you're bringing in another.... Give me your perspective of what this command centre would look like.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

There are three of them. We support our communities and our tribal councils. That's our approach, from a political level.

What I'm saying here is that we need control of that, from a community perspective. We have to be able to respond in a way that's efficient and is going to actually be effective in terms of getting the communities to do it in a way that's going to work for them.

In terms of the price and the cost, these things were planned. Twenty years ago they were already talking about these. I don't know how much the cost has increased. I don't want to put a number on that. There are three of them, and there are a lot of different particular things that go into whatever the proposal is. I know it's on the table. What I'm saying is that we need that support in order to ensure that those things improve.

You could look at a whole lot of reasons for it being better to have it come from the community. The history has always been that things come from outside, that they know best outside, but that doesn't build the capacity of the community, because nobody likes to be told anything. They want to learn through their own process. The communities are all responsive to that.

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

We just looked at your runway.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

Which one?

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

The one you were talking about, Poplar River. You're not going to land a 747 on it; I'll tell you that.

We didn't go to Poplar River, but we were in Winnipeg talking to people who came from there. The frustration of the people there was at an all-time high. As you mentioned, there are five to a boat, or whatever. They're picking up seven or nine at a time on an airplane. This is an issue that has been boiling over for several decades. I want you to respond to that.

It's a remote area of Manitoba. I realize that.

[Grand Chief Jerry Daniels]

Do you want me to talk about Poplar River specifically?