Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 12th, 2020

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

You are absolutely right. That is unacceptable. The fact of the matter, however, is that it falls under the authority of the Société d'habitation du Québec and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation; my department does not have jurisdiction over them.

We have ways that we can conduct checks, and we rely heavily on the choices made by indigenous communities. One of the main elements of my mandate is to rely on and empower them so that they can spend the funding how they choose. They have the real-world information to make the right choices. It's their right to make their own decisions, because the money is theirs.

When an issue falls under the authority of a Quebec or Canadian government department that is overseen by us, we have control mechanisms at our disposal, but there are anomalies, and this is one of them.

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

Here's another case that involves an apartment in my riding, in Senneterre, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

The tenant, Marc Roy, said his ceilings had been removed because he had had water leaks and mould could be seen in a number of places. From time to time, I call the people in charge, and they tell me that they don't have any money left to repair the apartment. It's really unfortunate.

You mentioned the Quebec and Canadian government departments, but what kind of control mechanisms could be used to prevent these things from happening?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Mr. Perron will answer your question.

I am not trying to downplay your comment. I think that is an aberration and it should never happen. We could perhaps begin a discussion on auditing. I want you to know that, for the funds we allocate, first nations are the most subject to financial audits across Canada. Our audit and transparency mechanisms are very prevalent for the funding we provide. Generally, compared with the rest of Canada, we see that aboriginal people are sometimes audited too much. As I was saying to you, aberrations do exist, which is very unfortunate. We have mechanisms to remedy that.

[Sony Perron]

The situation you described is very appalling. We don't know much more than what we heard in the media this morning.

The role of the Department of Indigenous Services really focuses on housing on reserves. Quebec has a very creative and innovative process undertaken in partnership with first nations. Every year, a planning session focuses on non-treaty communities and covers the planning of years to come.

We have even developed, in partnership with the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, a certification process for housing managers on reserves to enhance capacity. As the minister was saying, we provide the funding, but the needs exceed what we can provide. However, we are convinced that local managers will administer the housing sector and successfully manage situations like the one you mentioned. Those situations can concern both external contractors and housing that is not funded by the government but is still managed by the community. So investments must be made in capacity because the needs are there.

Rest assured that we are paying a great deal of attention to this in Quebec, but also in other regions of Canada.

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

How much federal funding has been provided through subsidies to that off-reserve corporation ?

[Sony Perron]

I do not know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have 30 seconds.

[Sony Perron]

As I was saying, this is what I learned in the media. In Quebec, the department allocates about $17 million or $18 million a year for on-reserve housing. So that does not involve this particular case.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Johns, you have six minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here with your team in light of this historic crisis we're facing right now.

As you know, we want to talk about many issues, but right now, with the pending crisis before us, we have important timely questions around disaster preparedness for first nations, Inuit and Métis people. We're going to focus on things that we're hearing.

We're hearing constantly from your government and your party that more needs to be done, and right now, with regard to the concerns we have with COVID-19, the advice to Canadians and indigenous people has been, “Wash your hands and self-quarantine.”

So many communities don't even have running water to be able to deal with this crisis, or there's overcrowding in homes. It would help if people could self-quarantine and could certainly stop the spread. Can you talk about concrete steps that your government is taking right now to support indigenous communities facing this crisis?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

That's a very, very important question. It's important to highlight that there are distinctions, obviously. Indigenous populations are much more vulnerable, for the reasons you've highlighted: overpopulation/overcrowding in housing, health outcomes that are lower than those of non-indigenous Canadians and access to health care in a culturally sensitive fashion.

Regarding the specific measures I highlighted in my introduction, there is the $79 million for emergency preparedness, and the Prime Minister's announcement, $100 million of which first nations can access in tandem with the amounts provided in support of provincial and territorial governments.

The specific issues you raise are very, very important. We have not only surge capacity that we are working at internally in providing and getting out to communities, the fact that we have access to it and they have access to it should something arise, and we can then step up—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

They're not hearing that. They're not getting that message. They heard about the announcement yesterday. I'm just getting a message right now from the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council president. All he got is the announcement. They haven't seen any of this and they don't know what's going on. They have questions and this information has to get out there.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

You're absolutely right. We have actually reached out directly to health centres and to health providers. Sometimes that information doesn't necessarily get back to leadership. We can work on getting that information there, and then directly to the public.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

It can't get to the people if it doesn't get to the leadership.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I would ask Valerie to step in on that. A briefing was given to all parliamentarians this morning with some very important details, so I'd ask her to elaborate a bit on it. It's a very important question.

[Valerie Gideon]

Sure, absolutely.

Within B.C., the First Nations Health Authority is managing the planning, the preparedness and the response efforts. They're the ones that have been communicating with B.C. first nations communities directly because they have that direct responsibility. We are, however, engaging them in every single one of our calls and all of our meetings with respect to the national preparedness efforts. Even I, myself, wrote to the CEO of the First Nations Health Authority last night to talk again about the announcement and how we will ensure that B.C. first nations communities—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Would you be willing to follow up with me tomorrow to make sure this message has gotten to the nations in my riding? Clearly, it's not right now. We're not hearing that.

[Valerie Gideon]

I can confirm with you, absolutely, what communications FNHA has sent out.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

Speaking of the urgency, does this not highlight the sense of urgency to make these critical investments we're talking about...and accelerate your timelines when it comes to indigenous housing and make sure that you have indigenous housing not just on reserve, but also off reserve, such as urban and rural and northern housing? This is critical right now. Is the government looking at accelerating it in light of the crisis?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Given the options we have before us, in the case that there is an outbreak and there is a necessity to self-isolate, we're looking at the option of having isolation tents. We're looking at the ability to have increased personnel to specifically address overcrowding.

It is unacceptable. I think all Canadians need to realize the level of overcrowding that exists in indigenous communities. We have made historic investments, but given the timeline that you're describing the most expedient thing is to increase our capacity and to have a sensitive and appropriate approach, in particular to handwashing and the capacity to self-isolate. We know the communities are more vulnerable. That's why we're dedicating additional resources to that.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'll look forward to seeing that happen.

With regard to health care in indigenous communities, especially in rural and remote areas, the difficulty around transportation is something we're hearing about and are concerned about, especially with the ice roads closing really soon. We also know that 40% of clinics have critical property issues.

What's the department planning for the worst-case scenario in these communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have one minute.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Again, Gord, we have a staged approach. As the Prime Minister has mentioned, money is not an issue. This is about getting surge capacity in place and having a staged approach. If and when issues occur in community, it has to be appropriate to the community. We have to have that proper level of engagement in a community.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

We're happy to hear that money is not an issue.

We talked about disaster relief and evacuations, such as we're seeing in Kashechewan, which will be evacuated, as we know, in the coming weeks because of spring flooding. What are the plans to make sure people are kept safe, not only in the process of evacuation, but also for those people temporarily living in an urban centre that they might not be familiar with?