Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Jan. 26th, 2021

I was speaking with one of my chiefs before the holiday about a lot of the issues around food. One of the things that he proposed we could do is use his community as a pilot project for the nutrition north subsidy, because what he told me—this is for Fort Severn, by the way, the most northern community we have in NAN territory—is that a lot of his people are ordering products now online and they're getting them delivered directly, so they're not even shopping at the local store. It's cheaper for them to order it online and get it delivered than it is for them to actually shop in the community. That was one idea you can look at to make the subsidy different. He said he would even be willing to share that information with anybody who would want to look at making that change for their community, and even with government agencies as well.

There are a lot of people and community members up there who want to start doing their own gardening. Like I mentioned before, a lot of the funding that we get is project to project, so when I was talking about that lady at NAN who was doing food issues part time, she had a program going where she would gather up a lot of seeds and instructions on how to plant those seeds and how to maintain them, and send those to the community. It was just to try to give people the supplies and maybe some of the knowledge and some training on how to maintain that.

Like I said, the need is there. It's just that there's no real sustainable funding to last long term. Say a community gets really involved with gardening. When the project ends and they don't find any funding to maintain it, they lose that interest. Say then, there are kids involved in it. They may move on and go to post-secondary and it may take two steps back again in trying to get more people involved. You're restarting the cycle over and over again. It's frustrating. I think it happens a lot in terms of trying to get projects going in the communities.

NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Thank you for that. That was incredibly helpful. The other thing that you talked about earlier was the issues around food insecurity and the results that has on mental health. I know that you talked very clearly about the pandemic and those gaps already being there, but this has certainly made them even bigger and very easy to see. I'm just wondering if there are any supports for folks to address the mental health concerns that you're seeing happen due specifically to food insecurity.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

We at NAN saw that there were a lot of issues regarding mental health during the pandemic, so we started a hotline. It's called NAN Hope. We promote it very regularly and we offer it in all the languages in the territories, so Cree, Oji-Cree and Ojibwa. We started that support and we go on the radio twice a week with the radio station that we have available in our communities, which is Wawatay. We mention every time we go on the radio that we have this Hope line in place so that people can reach out—even me too. I've been on the radio a couple of times talking about this and I encourage a lot of our people to really get the help that they may need.

NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

January 26th, 2021 / 11:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina

Thanks. We're at time now.

We go to a five-minute round and Gary Vidal will be up first.

Gary, just so you know, I have the Beauval coffee cup on this blizzardy morning in Hamilton, thinking about your cold weather forecast.

Go ahead for five minutes, Gary.

Conservative

Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just so you know, we had a road trip planned to that beautiful community tomorrow, which now is delayed because of some of the wonderful weather we're having.

Deputy Grand Chief, I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us today. Your comments and your suggestions have been more than helpful. They've been very positive, and I appreciate your solutions-based approach.

I want to pursue that idea a little more. You talked in your opening comments about working on solutions for the nutrition north program and trying to get political support for some of those solutions. I know that in answering the other questions you've already provided some of those, but I want to expand further on what some of those solutions look like so that we can give you that political support.

I want you to do it in the context of maybe thinking a little outside the box and maybe outside the existing government programs and some of those things. Are there some creative ideas you have that could be included in the discussion?

The reason I go there is that the area you're talking about—that area of northern Ontario—is so incredibly similar to the riding I come from in northern Saskatchewan. I had the privilege of being in Mr. Melillo's riding in that area. It's very similar. One of the things we have going on in my riding is a discussion around taking a soon-to-be-expired mine and turning it into an underground greenhouse, whereby there's going to be an opportunity to create some food supply and some food security right in northern Saskatchewan.

With that being a bit of a preface, I'm looking at whether you have some ideas that are very much solution-based ideas and that may be a bit outside the box as well. I want to get your input on that. You've offered some really good stuff already, and I guess I just want you to expand on that.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

All right.

Some of the discussions we've been having with our chiefs in NAN territory are about looking at maybe creating co-ops and centralized distribution centres. For the northwest area of NAN, say, the main hub would be Sioux Lookout, and for the James Bay area, it would be Timmins.

There has been some talk about getting interested in a community co-op and maybe having it kind of owned, I guess, by the members. One of the ideas I heard from one of my chiefs is about somehow creating a system whereby the profits don't really go to an outside organization, but rather to putting more in savings so that the customers and the community members are the ones who get to see actual savings on how much the products are in their community. That's one suggestion. It's one discussion that I've had with a couple of my chiefs.

Again, as you know, it would take some research if we have to look at which kinds of organizations and distribution centres to work with. I think that would be needing some funding for us, the first nations, to get this thing off the ground.

Conservative

Gary Vidal Conservative Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK

Thank you for that.

In your earlier comments, you talked as well about some of the supports that would be needed to improve or expand on the traditional, cultural land-based types of things. You threw out the idea of rototillers and some infrastructure for buildings. Does that include greenhouses? Could you talk a bit more about the kinds of investments that might be necessary to expand on those more traditional or cultural practices?

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

Sure.

I would say that infrastructure is a big one, which we would welcome in a lot of our communities, I'd say, because right now a lot of our communities are at capacity with a lot of their buildings. In some communities, you would even have to look at making upgrades to the water system, the sewage system, because that may be at full capacity as well.

There's a lot of infrastructure that would be needed, including in looking at trying to get greenhouses going in the communities. Then, if we were to do that, if we were to build greenhouses, we'd have to come up with a way to have somebody look after them as well. I don't know if it's through the band office, say, or maybe through education somehow. Maybe we can make it a part of.... I'm not sure how that would look, but we would definitely need dedicated people who were focusing on just this issue in the communities.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina

Thanks, Chief. That brings us to time there.

Thanks, Gary.

Now Marcus Powlowski, you're up for five minutes. Go ahead.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Thank you.

Hello, Jason. It's nice to see you. I want to get into some specifics, and it might seem like an odd question, but I think a lot of people from down south don't really know much about what happens in your communities.

I remember—and this was more in Yvonne's territory—one Christmas in Nain, being invited to someone's house and having boiled turkey. I'm not sure if it was boiled potatoes or it was bannock in homebrew. I don't think this guy had much money. Obviously in any community there are going to be variations as to what people can afford.

Jason, could you just give us an idea, what, in your communities for someone who has more money and for someone who doesn't have much money, would be the average thing someone would eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and how much that would all cost if you were to buy it at the Northern store?

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

I would say it varies by the location. The more north you go, the more expensive it is. I will start off with a story. I happened to be in one of my communities on the first of the month, which was social assistance day. I was staying there for a couple of nights and I had just finished work. I went to the store to buy myself some snacks for the evening and I just happened to look in people's baskets. I noticed that a lot of the people were buying a lot of foods that come in boxes, like chicken fingers and other kinds of frozen food that you throw in the oven. It didn't look healthy at all but that was mostly what everybody was buying. That's because it's really all people can afford. It's cheaper to buy those kinds of foods than it is to prepare a healthy meal. Say if you wanted to cook bacon, eggs and toast with some fruit, I don't know how much that would cost exactly, but it wouldn't be cheap. It's not like it is down south where you can buy fruit that's already cut up for about three or four dollars and maybe just throw that on as a side. The eggs may be three or four dollars down south too, so you have to triple that price. Just for, say, a dozen eggs, you could pay anywhere from $10 to $12.

I also mentioned earlier that fresh fruit is not really available. One time when I was in Moose Factory visiting, I went to the grocery store and I bought a loaf of bread. When I got to where I was staying, it was mouldy, so I couldn't even use that. That's just an example of what it's really like up in the north.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Having lived for a couple of years in such communities, I have spent a lot of money at the Northern store and have had to pay whatever they were charging, four or five dollars, for a head of lettuce and those kinds of prices. Obviously in a lot of these communities, Northern store basically has a monopoly. There's no real competition. Do you think their prices are fair? I mean when you have a monopoly you can charge whatever you want and people basically have to pay because they don't have much of an alternative. What do you think of the prices that Northern stores are asking for their products?

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

I'm going to give you an example to answer that question. In the community of Moosonee, which is on the James Bay coast, which is right next door to Moose Factory, there is an LCBO there and the prices in that LCBO are exactly the same as in downtown Toronto. When you go to the grocery store, as I said, the prices are two or three times more than what they are in the same area in Toronto. I have to ask, why is it that way? Why is alcohol the same price yet groceries are two or three times the price?

That's just something that a lot of people have actually been talking about lately. If that is possible, then how come we're not having the same prices of food at our grocery stores as they are in southern Ontario?

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina

Thanks very much, Deputy Grand Chief.

Madam Bérubé, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead, please.

Bloc

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are talking about food that is not healthy at all. This is incomprehensible, given what you pay for these foodstuffs. The prices are completely different in Toronto or elsewhere.

What could the federal government do to ensure that you have access to traditional foods?

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

The way it used to be in the old days was that when our people went out to the land for harvesting, and let's say hunters got a moose, when they got back to the community they would share that with the elders. That still happens today, but as I said earlier, a lot of people can't afford that. Why don't we look at creating something around that, where we can get people to go out on the land? A big thing about our culture is sharing. That's one of the key things even in our understanding of the treaties. When our people go out onto the land and they come back with their gatherings, a lot of people share that with a lot of community members. It could be elders or it could be somebody who is not physically able to be out on the land.

There is still a sense of community in our territory. We just need more supports and we need to find creative ways to keep people out on the land while still making a living.

I hope that answers the question.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina

Thank you. It does.

Madam Bérubé, we are right at 10 seconds. Thank you.

Next we have Rachel Blaney for two and a half minutes.

NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much for this. Deputy Grand Chief, you spoke earlier about the need to build capacity within the communities. You talked about the reality that you keep having to start again and again, and about not being able to keep that momentum up because of funding constraints. I'm just wondering if we could get some clarity about what the gap is. Obviously, the gap is consistent funding, but does NAN need resources to have someone focus solely on building capacity to address food security? How would that best be managed through your region?

Nishnawbe Aski Nation