Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 8th, 2020

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

It's never been looked upon as an essential service for the last number of years, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. They have a first nations policing program and it's cost-shared between the provinces and the federal government.

I have raised this and it is being worked on. Once we get out of COVID-19, that is something that has to be focused on as well.

It's a bigger issue than just policing as an essential service. The overall justice system needs to be reviewed and start moving towards a restorative justice system, not a punitive justice system. That's just some of the work that has to happen. COVID-19, this life-and-death situation, has sucked up a lot of the space, but we can't forget....

Just think of what happened to Brady Francis; think of what happened to Jon Styres and Colten Boushie. There is something that has to be fixed, but recognition of first nations law in governance and jurisdiction, in addition to common law and civil law, is something we have to get working towards in this country.

If you want to start talking about reconciliation, that's where we have to go and it's a bigger picture than just policing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

That's our time on that round of five minutes.

We go now to Ms. Zann for five minutes.

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

First of all, I want to say thank you so much, wela'lin, to all of the gentlemen who have presented. We're talking about really important stuff today. It's very interesting.

It's wonderful to see Nunavut COVID-free and to see your community there celebrating on television for that incredible milestone. It's wonderful and so uplifting. It would be nice if we could all learn from what you've done.

Here in Nova Scotia we have a number of cases. So far we're doing pretty well in Millbrook First Nation, which is in my community, but I'm always concerned because during the last epidemic we had, which was H1N1, I was actually in government at the time here in Nova Scotia. We were telling folks that pregnant women and first nations people needed to be inoculated first because it was easy for them to get that particular virus. I was shocked at the racism that this brought up, when people were complaining that our first nations people were able to get in line and be inoculated first. I'm aware of racism, of course, but that really blew me away and I was so disgusted.

As Chief Bellegarde mentioned, there are so many things we need to look at on a larger scale, and COVID-19 just brings out certain things and puts a spotlight on certain things that are already happening.

One thing I'm interested in asking you about is the personal protective equipment. On May 1, the Minister of Indigenous Services told the committee that $59.8 million had been used so far to purchase personal protective equipment and to support emergency preparedness for the communities, and noted that the funding is in addition to the $80 million for health emergency preparedness announced in budget 2019. However, prior to the pandemic, did the department consult indigenous communities and organizations about the types and quantities of protective equipment and essential supplies that might be needed in the department's stockpile?

Also, I'm just curious as to how long, on average, it takes for remote and isolated communities to receive the orders that they need of personal protective equipment from the department.

I'm not sure which one of you would like to respond.

[David Chartrand]

Let me start. Thanks. Nobody has asked that question.

From our perspective let me put it this way: from here to eternity probably, because we never got anything. We didn't get one mask. We didn't get one hand sanitizer. We didn't get anything in our Métis communities. As I said, there are 400,000 of us in western Canada, and we play a very important role in the economy of this country. We pay billions in taxes as a people. I'm not even being treated as a Canadian because of this jurisdictional limbo of who's responsible for us.

When these stockpiles are taking place in Canada, I'm sad to say as a leader that they are not inclusive of us. We have nothing. We don't get one mask. We don't even get one Band-Aid. Let's put it that way. I'm not making this up. This is real and sincere. As I said, last week you heard in the committee when the representative for first nations, Philippe, said that Métis are not their jurisdiction, that that's provincial jurisdiction. You go to the provinces and they say, “No, you have to go back to Canada.” We're in a dark zone, and we're not even treated as Canadians, so we get zero.

Thank you for the question, Lenore.

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you.

Chief Bellegarde.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Thank you, Lenore.

It varies across Canada. Like I said, there are 634 first nations, and in your territory there are 13 in Nova Scotia, and they're all Mi'kmaq. There are also two in P.E.I. and two in Newfoundland, and it varies in terms of getting out supplies to the first nations communities.

I also mentioned earlier that we have 96 fly-in communities in the north, and that's a different situation, with more challenges in the north. Even on the ground, Indigenous Services Canada has a responsibility through treaty, through section 35, to provide this, again in exchange for all the land we're sharing. Certain rights and responsibilities and obligations were to be provided to first nations people. They're slow coming out. There's a need for more PPE to be accessible, there's no question.

Again, keep pushing for our full involvement and inclusion in policy design and legislation and programs going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Chief. Thanks, Ms. Zann. That's your time.

We go now to Mr. Zimmer for five minutes.

Go ahead, Bob.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I'm honoured once again to see you, Chief Bellegarde, and Mr. Obed as well. We met in Ottawa a few months ago. It has been a while, but it's going to be great to see you once again in the future.

Mr. Chartrand, I don't know if we've ever met, but it's an honour today.

First of all, I want to speak to the previous point of order.

I think it looks like there's an apparent coverup going on here with the Wet'suwet'en topic. Certainly I'm getting letters about the Wet'suwet'en situation, the MOU [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Bob, we've dealt with that.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Frankly, Chair, it hasn't been. That's why I keep getting letters about the situation, but we will move on.

For those who don't know, I am the shadow minister for northern affairs and northern economic development. That's the framework under which I want to ask my questions.

I've met with many of the mining chambers with regard to COVID. Some of the programs don't seem to fit for them, the way they have their infrastructure set up in terms of their funding models and that.

I'm curious to see from your perspective, Chief Bellegarde, how we get our economy going. I guess that's the basic question I'm asking. Testing, you have mentioned, has been somewhat sporadic. We've heard that from Mr. Chartrand and Mr. Obed as well. We see this as the way that really needs to happen. We need to have more testing in order for us to get back to normal, if you want to say it that way.

What has the testing been like in your community? Once again, we will start with Chief Bellegarde, and then maybe go to Mr. Chartrand, and then Mr. Obed.

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

Again, Bob, regarding getting the economy going again, there's no question that's on everybody's mind across Canada. It has to be done in phases, and it has to be done cautiously.

Personally, I think we don't have enough data in certain provinces. Personally, I've said they're moving a little too quickly because a second wave of COVID-19 may come.

Once it's clear that the bell has flattened, there have to be task teams and task forces in every sector. If you're talking about agriculture, there has to be a task team in place. If you're talking about forestry, there has to be a task team in place. If you're talking about manufacturing, there has to be a task team in place.

I sat on the USMCA working with Minister Freeland on that. That's implemented July 1, so even dealing with Canada-U.S.A. in terms of the economy it's going to be another thing to have a specific strategy implementing that going forward.

My whole point is that you have to involve our people around this table sector by sector of the economy. There is only one economy. It's just a matter of where you fit into it. I really think there is an opportunity to build that better. The old ways of doing business are out the door. There have to be new ways to start looking at major programs in clean energy. The clean sector, whether it be wind, solar or hydro; we have to look at investing there. It's putting more dollars into those resources going forward because we have to deal with the Paris climate accord, and we also have to deal with the 2030 sustainable development goals from the UN.

There's a lot of work to do going forward in terms of kick-starting the economy, no question. The testing is never enough. The more testing the better. It has to be quicker and faster.

Those are my comments on that. Thanks for the question, Bob.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Mr. Chartrand.

[David Chartrand]

Thank you very much, Bob, for that.

Let me say this. From our perspective, testing is clearly—you're absolutely right—one of the keys to solving this or helping to at least curb it in some form or fashion. There's definitely not enough testing taking place across the country. When you look at it from the Métis side—I use MMF, and I've been the president there for 22 years. You look at Manitoba, for example. There are over 125,000 of us here and there is no testing, I'm sorry to say, Bob, in our communities. There's no plan, there's no.... I don't know why. Are they waiting for it to take off and then try to rush in after the fact? That's so damaging. That's after the fact. Prevention is the key.

On the economy side, we definitely have our own economic strategy. We are going to be hiring hundreds of people across the province shortly. Every strategy will have a COVID built-in concept established, whether it's in housing construction or summer student jobs for our youth. We're going to hire thousands of people, without question. Even the students alone, we usually hire about 500 to 600 throughout the summer. We're still planning to do that.

We're going to build hundreds of houses in the province, so we definitely know we need to have a COVID plan. We're doing a bunch of housing repairs worth $1.5 million. About 100 houses, private homes, will be applying for that. You'll get about two or three workers per every house. You start adding that up and you're talking about 300 workers there.

We're having a plan and we're.... The missing link is the co-operative attachment of how we do it. How do we do it as indigenous governments, and how do we do it with provincial and federal governments? How do we work together on it? If they're not working with us, let me tell you, I'm going ahead anyway because my people need jobs and they need security, but they need to be safe. We are building our own strategy in our own government and moving forward. We're making the message strong and clear.

[Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

We're way over five minutes, Mr. Chair.

[David Chartrand]

Mr. Chair, I can't. This is important.

We're taking advice from all of the medical experts right now in Canada. We're listening to the doctors and trying to follow that direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

To the witnesses, there are issues that you want to bring up that can come up later on in further questions. We'll lose track of our meeting rounds if we continually go over.

We're at Ms. Damoff now.

Pam, you have five minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I want to start by thanking all three witnesses for their testimony. It's wonderful hearing from all of you.

President Obed, I'm going to start with you. You've been very quiet here. I'm wondering, as the south looks at opening up its economy and we're seeing that more, I'm wondering about your thoughts on the impact this is going to have on the communities you represent in the north.

[Natan Obed]

Thank you for the question.

I think we're in an unprecedented scenario, of course, but look at the scenario right now for one of our four regions, Nunavut. If individuals choose to fly to the south, when they come back, they have to pay for two weeks of isolation in a hotel before they can come back to the community.

We have no active cases, for the time being, but the prospect of opening up our 51 isolated communities for business in any sort of way is still something that I think is very worrisome to many Inuit in many of the communities, largely because we still don't have point-of-access testing. We still don't have a secure treatment that can happen right now, and we have all the socio-economic conditions that I listed at the beginning of this meeting.

There are very Inuit-specific considerations for northern, isolated, remote communities in reopening our economy and reopening our communities. It will require specific time and investment from the federal government to ensure that we aren't left behind or that we just aren't considered, and that COVID-19 could somehow make its way into our communities based on the lack of consideration.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Are you being included in the conversations with the provinces on the reopening?

[Natan Obed]

ITK at the national level is working very closely with the government. Our board of directors, our land claims rights-holding presidents, are working with their respective jurisdictions. Some have better relationships than others, but for the most part we feel in this time there is a sense of constructiveness and a sense of wanting to work together beyond the historical challenges that we, as Inuit, have had with the specific jurisdiction.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay.

This question applies to all three, but I'll start with you and then maybe we can go to Grand Chief Bellegarde.

Connectivity has really come to the forefront for all Canadians, but in particular for people in the north, although it's not exclusive to that, because I've got a friend who lives at Six Nations—which is in the south, and it's very urban—and can't connect to the Internet.

Can you just briefly talk about how important connectivity is, both access to the Internet but also the equipment that young people need to access to go to school, for example, or that businesses need to be able to do their work online?

[Natan Obed]

Just about all of Inuit Nunangat is still dependent upon satellite technology for Internet access. We don't have the connectivity that southern Canada has. We are, and always have been, a generation or two behind southern Canada when it comes to connectivity, and that's had massive impacts on our business, on our education, on our health care systems and on individuals' ability to interact with other Canadians. In this particular moment, there has been a focus on children and having online learning access for schools.

We need things like iPads—connectivity devices—because we have such poverty and such challenges just in having quality of life and standard of living. We also need connectivity within our communities. The same goes for our health care systems and trying to work remotely, and trying to ensure that the suite of health care can still be delivered, even if we're trying to ensure that there is as little travel as possible. Connectivity is essential for the functioning of Inuit Nunangat, and it has been a long-standing concern of ours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

We'll go now to a two-and-a-half-minute round, and my first speaker is Ms. Michaud of the Bloc Québécois.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Good morning. Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I'll be brief. Nearly $1 billion has been announced since the beginning of the crisis. Minister Miller announced that there may be more funding, depending on the needs and how the crisis evolves.

It seems you were consulted very little before the first announcements. Have you drawn up a list of your needs? Has it been costed? What could we propose to the government, before the next announcements, to help your communities?

[National Chief Perry Bellegarde]

The answer, quickly, is no. There was no list. There was no formal involvement. The positive thing, though, is that Minister Miller will say that these are scalable. Now that the 634 chiefs have had a chance to see how this affects them—they know their needs—I'm going to stress again to the government and to the proper ministers that, once the needs have been identified, they be met.

These are the words that the Prime Minister and the ministers use: These amounts are scalable. It's clear already that the funding resources, the financial resources that have been identified and have been talked about, don't meet the needs. There has to be more, just to make sure those health care needs that have been identified are met going forward.

Thank you for your question.