Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 22nd, 2020

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Davis Inlet is a fly-in community. I am familiar with NAN communities because I'm in Thunder Bay, and there are a lot of NAN people in Thunder Bay, so I've been in touch with Chief Fiddler as to what they're doing with their communities. One thing they did early on was really to try to, as much as possible, stop all non-essential travel back and forth to the communities.

Is that the same thing that they've done in your communities?

[Chief Ghislain Picard]

The approach taken by the Labrador Innu nation was to cease all operations at the Goose Bay Airport to prevent cases from entering the Innu community. At the same time, on the Quebec side, some 30 isolated communities accessible only by air or boat, if not more, established checkpoints to prevent people from coming and going into the communities.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Has a problem as a result of this been—and this isn't just in indigenous communities but all across Canada—that now people aren't getting medical services? People who have cancer, heart disease and other major killers aren't having their problems addressed because nobody wants to go to the hospital because of COVID-19? Everything is shut down.

Having worked in Nain, looking after Davis Inlet, I know these places had a lot of medical problems beforehand, never mind COVID-19. Are these medical problems still adequately being addressed, given the fact that everything is shut down?

[Chief Ghislain Picard]

I will let Ms. Siouï answer your question.

[Marjolaine Siouï]

As you pointed out, people have certainly been afraid to go to the doctors in hospitals. On the other hand, the majority of communities in Quebec have a health centre or nursing station open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where they can receive some care. However, the most serious cases are certainly found among people who are on dialysis. They have often had to stay out of the community to continue their treatment.

For other cases, such as people waiting for surgery or those with cancer, we followed the current plan of the Quebec health care system. Surgeries resumed last week. Before that, only the most urgent cases were treated. So some care has been maintained in this regard, and now care will gradually resume for everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

That's all of our time for that round. Thanks, Mr. Powlowski. Thank you, guests.

Now we go to Madame Bérubé, for six minutes.

You have the floor.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to welcome all the witnesses. My question is for Mr. Picard.

Mr. Picard, this week, on Facebook, I saw an interesting image shared by a first nations activist. It was an embroidery piece on which one could read that the coronavirus had not broken the system, but rather revealed a broken system. That pretty much sums up the problem. In terms of housing, we are facing a systematic problem that can be very dangerous in terms of the transmission of the virus.

Can you tell us about the housing needs of the first nations of Quebec, the epidemiological challenges posed by the lack of housing, and what can be done by the federal government to correct this situation?

[Chief Ghislain Picard]

Thank you very much for your question.

That has always been the case. It's not the first time we've talked about it. Let us say that the crisis has amplified the situation and the problems that communities are experiencing. We hear almost contradictory messages. On the one hand, they are promoting guidelines, such as physical distance and washing your hands for 20 seconds, and on the other hand, there is overcrowding. It is therefore extremely difficult to take the guidelines into account and apply them in the circumstances we are aware of.

Simply put, tomorrow morning, 8,000 new housing units would have to be built in Quebec alone to make the situation comparable to that elsewhere. We have been talking about this for 20 years. Since 2000, the communities in our region have been saying that the housing situation is in crisis, and we have been advocating for change for 20 years. In the context of the current crisis, the determinants of health become even more important and, indeed, access to shelter or housing is at the heart of these conditions.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Picard.

The federal government also announced $24,882,000 for the first nations of Quebec. Commenting on the $215 million that amount came from, Chief Perry Bellegarde said that it was a first step. This implies that a second one will be needed.

Regarding the Indigenous Community Support Fund, several questions come to mind. Is this money being paid out quickly enough for communities to meet urgent expenses?

[Chief Ghislain Picard]

I'm not avoiding the question, but I'll let Ms. Siouï answer it.

[Marjolaine Siouï]

In terms of the investments that have been made, this is certainly a first phase. However, when we look at the current needs, we cannot talk about housing without talking about the necessary infrastructure. In Quebec, we do have 14 seniors' residences. Most of the other seniors live with their families. So, this has caused great problems in terms of the measures needed to combat COVID-19, such as isolation and confinement.

On the other hand, there are jurisdictional conflicts, particularly when it comes to investments that were announced, whether provincial or federal. For Quebec, it is a great challenge to demystify all this. We also know that the communities have expressed great concern regarding temporary accommodation.

It is therefore certain that it is a good thing to have a first phase, but it will be necessary to look at much more specific issues and make a complete assessment in order to rectify the current situation.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Have you faced any administrative hurdles, Ms. Siouï?

[Marjolaine Siouï]

Yes. There's the division of powers. As always, there's the question of who has what responsibility. As far as public health is concerned, we know very well that Quebec's Public Health Act applies. The provincial government therefore has its share of responsibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have one minute.

[Marjolaine Siouï]

It's sad to see that in circumstances like these, people's health is put at risk because of jurisdictional issues.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Yes.

Do you need an additional amount of money on top of the initial amount? If so, how much is needed?

[Marjolaine Siouï]

I couldn't give you a number today. There is no doubt that the sums invested to date are insufficient for many communities, for the simple reason that there are other measures to be taken. I'll give you an example.

This morning, a federal investment was confirmed. Quebec had announced wage increases, first because its system is flawed, that is, it does not pay front-line and essential services workers well enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We are at six minutes.

[Marjolaine Siouï]

As for the announcements that have been made, this will come under federal funding, as was the case today for people who work in seniors' residences or who provide assisted living services. On the other hand, anything that affects resources, such as police officers, nurses and other skilled trades—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We're at time right there. We'll pick that up later.

Thank you very much.

We'll go now to Ms. Qaqqaq for a six-minute round.

Please go ahead.

[Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, Niki Ashton.

Just a quick shout-out to the IT team and the translators. I know trying to keep up with everything that's going on is a lot of work.

Thank you so much, of course, to all the witnesses for sharing your wonderful knowledge and your perspectives.

Ms. Campbell, can you speak more on the availability of testing and care in the communities that you support? I know there is some concern about how data is being collected in some communities.

How much testing is being done? Could you talk to some of these concerns and on how discrimination seems to play a significant part in these decisions?

[Tara Campbell]

One of the things we have learned is that testing is key. Testing is key to determining, obviously, the cases that are out in the community. By being able to test and get results sooner, we are able to isolate individuals to make sure that the transmission is minimal.

We do a lot of testing with respect to the outbreak that was in the La Loche-Clearwater area. We had a total of 30 cases there, and right now we only have nine active cases. We've tested 147 people there, again going door to door and testing individuals.

We aren't able to do this in every community, obviously, because testing supplies are limited. We do have a hard time getting these supplies from the province, as I mentioned earlier. The number of tests that we've done doesn't give an accurate reflection of the number of tests that have been done on our people in total, just because some of the testing is done off reserve, so again there is that gap with data sharing that we often come across, as well as in notifying individuals of their test results. We've come into snags with that as well, with negative results not being submitted back to either us or to the communities in a timely manner, so we're working to address that issue as well.

[Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you so much, Ms. Campbell.

I'm going to pass it off to Niki Ashton.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you very much, and welcome, everybody.

I am looking forward to later on in this meeting discussing an important motion that is looking at how procurement is taking place for indigenous communities. I'm very concerned that a community here in our region, Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, was told that it would be receiving tents that nobody ever asked for. I think this motion is critical in terms of getting to the bottom of what happened. We know that this has already led to a resignation from the procurement council. It's clear to me that people in the community that I represent deserve answers and that all communities across the country, as we've heard today, require access to much-needed infrastructure that they are asking for right now.

I'd like to shift my question and direct it to both Ms. Campbell and Monsieur Picard.

You were both talking about vulnerable northern regions, and we know that a number of our regions also involve work camps. We know that the outbreak in La Loche started from somebody who came back from the Kearl Lake work camp.

Here in our region, there are four first nations that are standing up against the ramping up of production at the Keeyask Manitoba Hydro work camp. They've done everything possible to keep COVID-19 out, but knowing what's happened elsewhere, we know work camps can be a vector in the spread of COVID-19 to the most vulnerable communities.

Do you share the concerns coming out of first nations that work camps can continue to put first nations at risk during this pandemic?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have one minute. Go ahead.