Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

[James Eetoolook]

I will proceed in English.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Please, go ahead.

[James Eetoolook]

Rates of food insecurity are at critical levels. We know that food insecurity directly affects individual health and well-being, as poor nutrition is linked to increased risk of chronic diseases. It lowers the learning capacity of our children and it has a detrimental impact on mental health.

Access to nutritious foods is not just necessary for individual well-being, but also for achieving broader public health objectives. Food insecurity threatens our cultural integrity, our overall social stability and has devastating effects on economic development. In the north, absolutely everyone is affected, even the food-secure.

Simply stated, healthy people perform better in all aspects of life. We all know that. As Nunavut’s economy develops, so too must the health of its population.

The COVID-19 pandemic further revealed the immediate need to address the severity of food insecurity experienced by too many Inuit families and highlighted the important role that food programs play in our communities.

When the schools were forced to close, school food programs—which were utilized by all of the students in most of the communities in Nunavut—were suddenly no longer available. This removed the one guaranteed meal a day for many. That's a lot. In fact, the Inuit health survey found that seven in 10 Inuit kids go to school hungry in Nunavut every single day.

It is a complex issue in Nunavut. The high cost of market food, our remote location, the decline in some animal stocks, population increases and changing hunting quotas contribute to the declining food security in Nunavut communities. I should say that the caribou in Baffin Island are only 255 a year for the largest population of Inuit and others in that region. We also have quotas on the beluga and on narwhal. It's very limited.

Climate change also poses a specific threat to food security in Nunavut because of its devastating effects on the availability of wildlife. We are seeing more than ever the changing migration patterns and reduction in caribou herds. The Government of Nunavut released survey results in 2013 claiming that the southern Baffin caribou herd had declined by 95% in the last 20 years.

Our rapidly changing environment is also posing a greater threat to the traditional hunting practices of Inuit. With sea ice breaking up early and unpredictably from year to year, the risks—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Mr. Eetoolook, we're way over time and we have to be finished by one o'clock. I'm going to ask you to stop there.

I'm going to go to our questioners and perhaps they can pick up more of your speech. For anything that was missed, please submit the written testimony to our committee.

I'm going to ask the committee members to do five minutes each, which will enable us to squeeze in the first round.

Mr. Melillo, can you go ahead, please, for five minutes?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of our witnesses for joining us today to talk about this important subject.

I would like to start with President Lampe. I've been doing a little bit of reading about the situation in Labrador. As I understand, the amount of food that is produced in Labrador is relatively low. One of the articles I was reading said that as little as 1% of the food consumed in Labrador is actually produced there.

Can you talk a bit about any programs or initiatives that your government has been working towards to increase harvesting capacity in your territory and how the federal government can help with those initiatives?

[Johannes Lampe]

Most certainly, as Natan Obed said earlier, we depend on different types of programs to help us with subsidies to try to lower the food prices that Labrador Inuit have to pay at the stores. That may help, but it's still very costly to purchase food items at the northern store or at the other store, which is the competition. Still, the food prices are pretty similar. We who are able to go shopping at these stores are able to buy almost everything we need.

I'd like to take the example of a single mother with four children who has been left by her spouse and who is trying to make ends meet and trying to get her children to school on time. These children are going to school hungry. There are breakfast programs in Nunatsiavut. However, again, you have to get up early in the morning to make that breakfast program, and without a bus, some of these children have to walk two kilometres to school. To see children trying to make it to school at -30°C in a big snowstorm.... It's very hard to see. We are trying to help our kids of school age and their single mothers.

At the same time, we do have community freezers to help our community residents pick up Arctic char or seal meat. This had to happen because our main staple food, the George River caribou herd, was banned 13-plus years ago. Our main staple has not come back. That's just one of the major things that have made food insecurity a lot harder than it had been. We hope the George River caribou herd will come back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

[Johannes Lampe]

There are also food banks that those who need food can go to. But again—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Mr. Lampe, I'm sorry to have to interrupt. We're right at time, and we're rushing toward our one o'clock deadline.

Our next questioner for five minutes is Yvonne Jones.

Ms. Jones, go ahead, please.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you, President Lampe, President Eetoolook and my good friend Adamie, for your presentations this morning. It's always good to hear each of you speak. I know this is a topic you could talk about for many hours, at length, because you're living it every single day. You know it better than anyone I know.

I'm going to ask one brief question. Like all of my colleagues on this panel today, I wish that I could ask you many, many questions. I don't know how the chair feels, but I would really welcome the opportunity to invite you back to our committee. I think your perspective is going to be very important to us as we determine our recommendations to the federal government going forward. I make that suggestion.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I know the Government of Canada made allocations that were Inuit-specific. They were allocated to each of the Inuit governments in Canada. A lot of it was geared towards food security and heat security.

How did you find that benefit and that program? Is this something you could see, going forward, that would make a huge difference in your communities in meeting food insecurity for people on low income?

Please feel free to start, whoever wishes to do so.

[Johannes Lampe]

Thank you, Yvonne.

That's certainly a question that is important for the MPs of Canada to understand. It's most certainly important if Canada is going to be responsible and not stop right here and now but continue to look at the food insecurity question. There are many questions that even our children and our grandchildren are asking their parents and grandparents. They are asking why it is that they cannot afford to get what other kids are able to get. Certainly at this time of year, the season is supposed to be a happy time for children, and a lot of our children are going hungry, not being able to help their single mother, you know.

We are doing all that we can, and the COVID-19 support is a godsend. It is most certainly important to Inuit across Nunangat, so we appreciate that. We really appreciate what Canada is doing.

We are into our second round of support for COVID. We had to suspend the support for some time while we reviewed whether we were doing it right, whether we were doing enough, and how we should change what we were doing. We were looking at a cut-off for how much people made. Was that cut-off too low? Did we have to raise that cut-off level for what people made annually? We had to review the COVID support that we were doing in Nunatsiavut.

When we suspended the support, people were crying. They were asking why the support was cut off, why it was suspended. Now we have put it back on, and certainly with winter coming up and with not having the caribou and not being able to...like the single mother having to decide whether to pay the light bill, get food or get the heating on for her children. These questions are very important and they are not coming from leaders across Nunangat but from individuals who are living—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Mr. Lampe, I have to interrupt. We need to move to our next questioner.

Madame Bérubé, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

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

My question is for Mr. Alaku.

In December 2018, in Kuujjuarapik, the fourth working session for the development of a food-security policy in Nunavik was held to develop a regional food security policy.

Can you tell us about the recommendations stemming from that meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry, Madame Bérubé, but we didn't hear the translation. Could you please repeat the question?

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

Okay.

My question is for Mr. Alaku.

In December 2018, in Kuujjuarapik, the fourth working session for the development of a food-security policy in Nunavik was held to develop a regional food security policy.

Can you tell us about the recommendations stemming from that meeting?

[Adamie Delisle Alaku]

Ms. Bérubé, I don't have exactly all the recommendations that have been made, but many of our recommendations relate to infrastructure. We've reached a point where our airports are no longer able to meet the demand.

We went from Twin Otters to Hawker Siddeley 748s, and then from Hawker Siddeley 748s to Dash-8-100s. Currently, Dash-8-100s and Dash-8-300s are used, but they no longer meet the demand.

We need to expand our airports. We don't have a port to facilitate the unloading of ships during the summer period, when we can bring in the products.

Personally, I don't have a report. So I won't be able to give the answer to your question. Having said that, there are many recommendations that deal with what more can be done in terms of federal government assistance.

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

Could you elaborate on your proposed recommendations?

[Adamie Delisle Alaku]

We recommend expanding our infrastructure. There are very big gaps, especially in the Internet. The Internet barely works. We don't have fibre optics. As I said, if we could expand our airports, we could have Q400s. Q400s are larger aircraft that can hold more people and carry more cargo. Right now, there are infrastructure gaps. These are all kinds of recommendations that we have.

Makivik and Air Inuit have invested heavily in infrastructure. Private funds are being used to build warehouses so that we can help the stores with storage and refrigeration. It's difficult, because it's mostly our personal and private funds that are being used to improve our region. We need a lot of help from the federal government.

This is one of our recommendations: there must be investment in our infrastructure.

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

So you are telling us that you aren't really receiving any assistance from the federal government and that this support won't allow you to foster development in Nunavik.

[Adamie Delisle Alaku]

What I'm saying is that our population has grown, and most of the infrastructure has been paid for by Makivik. The arenas, the community centres, the exhibition halls, the snowmobile stores, all of this is infrastructure that was paid for by Makivik, with the help of Air Inuit.

We're not meeting demand. Demand is increasing, and we need the help of all our partners, federal and provincial, to meet the current demand.

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

With regard to food security, what is the current situation in Nunavik?

[Adamie Delisle Alaku]

As Mr. Obed mentioned, we have huge restrictions on local production. We have a lot of seafood—scallops, mussels, char, fish—but there are a lot of restrictions and obstacles. Food inspections and government regulations restrict the use of local and regional resources.

We could provide healthy food to the communities. Instead of buying cheeseburgers and fries, people could buy very good food.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you.

First of all, thank you to all the witnesses.

I will come back to you, Mr. Delisle Alaku. You talked to us in your testimony about the fact that the Inuit population is growing and that wildlife monitoring and management is becoming increasingly important, with all the changes and with the populations there going down as well.

I'm just wondering if you could talk about what that would look like and what kind of resources are required to do that work.