Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 27th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We'll leave it at that. Perhaps there could be a reprise on the question from staff later.

Right now, the final question for the ministers goes to Mr. van Koeverden, for five minutes.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the ministers for joining us today. Thank you to a couple of people who subbed in as well for this extraordinarily late meeting this evening. I'm grateful to say that I am joining you from the sacred territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and I'm grateful, again, to be re-engaging in this important work.

My question is regarding friendship centres and how we are caring for indigenous people in urban and suburban settings. I know that my colleague and friend MP Pam Damoff has recently engaged with a local group in Halton to discuss this. There are implications for COVID, and beyond COVID, I think, but the more services we can provide to indigenous people in urban and suburban settings, the better.

I suppose that's a question for Minister Miller, and potentially Minister Bennett, but I'd love to hear about the progress.

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

Thank you so much for that important question, because it is a testament to the challenges we faced and the strict policy and legal authorities we all faced within our departments and how we've all had to think a bit outside the box in order to address where the vulnerabilities are expressing themselves, and that includes the 50% or more indigenous population that lives “off reserve”. More often, the typical iteration of that is large urban centres like Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, but it is also the reality in places like La Loche, where we saw one of the largest outbreaks. This is something that's near and dear to MP Vidal's heart, because I know of his engagement in ensuring that proper resources were deployed in those communities.

We have acknowledged that challenge, because those vulnerabilities exist, but when you're talking about intricate overlapping jurisdictions, obviously there's an execution challenge in the delivery of health care, which is primarily and exclusively, in those cases, the jurisdiction of the provincial or territorial governments. This has been a challenge within the strict authorities of the funds that we appropriated.

We knew from the very beginning that $15 million dedicated to “urban supports” was wildly insufficient, which is why we procured $75 million to distribute across a wide network of organizations and grassroots-based organizations that are really doing some of the key work in keeping people safe, whether that's food security, cultural supports, or keeping doors open. I think of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal, which is doing incredible work in keeping people safe, alive and well surrounded during this pandemic. I look at some of the mobile supports in downtown Toronto, which I think Pam was instrumental in announcing and pushing for. This is the result of advocacy across parties. There isn't a single party that didn't approach me to say, you have to do more for indigenous communities that are in urban settings. It has yielded results in areas that I mentioned previously, in supporting harm reduction models in various forms, whether it's a wet shelter or other supports for people who are perhaps not getting a safe supply, or the food security I mentioned earlier.

These are all elements where we see what I call a “jurisdictional hole”, where the federal government has not been present, and provincial and territorial supports, for whatever reason, have not been there. COVID doesn't check the Constitution before it infects someone, and where we've seen it, it goes after those who are most vulnerable. The indigenous communities that came together, the Métis, Dene.... La Loche is an incredible example of a very alarming spread at the outset of COVID, where 200 people were infected in a community that has had its challenges, but they rallied together with an emergency response team. We supported it with financial supports, and they were able to stamp it out, and that's amazing work.

In part, it is the federal government's response to a very tricky jurisdictional question where we could not close our eyes to it, but also because of the advocacy of voices that go across party lines. I think we need to keep going together in lockstep on this issue, because we're not out of the woods on COVID specifically, and there are needs that are, we must acknowledge, unmet, and we are not meeting them currently, whether we look at ourselves or at the provincial governments.

Thank you, Adam, in particular, for your advocacy, because I know how you've interacted with our.... This isn't a throwaway thank you; this is a real thank you and I mean it, in every single thing you do, because I know you've been passionate about this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you for bringing us exactly to time.

I want to thank ministers Miller, Bennett and Vandal. Your honours, thank you for joining us tonight.

We have to suspend briefly. We have a couple of audio connections to make. Don't leave the screen; don't do anything except wait to resume.

Once again, to the ministers, thank you so much. This was quite a meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We will resume our meeting now.

We have our witnesses in place, and we will have time for one six-minute round with our opening speaker, Mr. Arnold Viersen, who I believe is in the House.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I am in Ottawa today. I'm trying this out in person. I thought I'd keep the clerk company, although we are still sitting far apart from each other.

Minister Miller is responsible for the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. The good work of people like Travis Gladue-Beauregard and Charmaine Stick is not going unnoticed. I just want to thank the minister and his department for their forensic audit that's taking place on the Saddle Lake first nation. I know that many members have been working hard to get that to happen, and I want to thank the minister for that.

People like Denise from my riding are continually concerned about where the funds are being spent and where the special COVID funding that's coming to their particular band is going. They're also concerned about the fact that they may live off reserve, and how does that...? They complain to me that their head is counted when the band approaches the government for funding, and yet when they approach the band for services, they are deemed to be aliens to the band. Services are not provided.

That is an ongoing concern. That is something that we as Canadians have to work on. The Indian Act is something that we are concerned about. All of us are working to repeal the Indian Act. One of those things has been for the government to divide the department into two. I'm glad to see that the division seems to be under way now, even though, when I was looking for the Financial Transparency Act, it still says “northern and indigenous services” on the Internet. I'm not exactly sure when that will be fixed. We're hoping it will be fixed soon.

I'm not exactly sure.... I know that it's Minister Miller's department that's responsible for that. I'm just wondering how it's going with the enforcement of the Financial Transparency Act.

[Christiane Fox, Deputy Minister, Department of Indigenous Services]

I appreciate the question. It is in fact Indigenous Services Canada.

I guess I would start off by saying that we want to work, obviously, in lockstep with first nations government to support transparency and accountability. This is very much the approach the department has taken in order to work with communities across the country. This was, of course, a recommendation in the new fiscal relationship report that was developed by the Assembly of First Nations.

I think the approach we're trying to take is really not a top-down approach but very much in building community capacity and governance in order to really start investing to close the very unacceptable socio-economic gaps that do exist in these communities. I think it's important to state that the majority of first nations have effective governments and they are partners with Indigenous Services Canada. When challenges do arise, we want to work with communities. We want to think about solutions and we want to empower them in order to manage that.

I will turn to Philippe Thompson to see if there's anything he would like to add based on my response today.

Thank you.

[Philippe Thompson, Chief Finances, Results and Delivery Officer, Department of Indigenous Services]

Thank you very much, Deputy. I echo everything you are saying.

We have put a lot of effort over the last few years into building the capacity and investing with communities. A lot of them have adopted financial laws as well. They are putting in place an accountability regime. That's part of the requirement to have access to the 10-year grant in the new fiscal relationship.

I think there's a balance to strike between reporting and accountability. I think we're on the right path and working in the right direction. We're making sure that we are meeting the accountability requirements and that the capacity is being built. The first nations are accountable to their citizens. They want to be transparent. They want to provide the information. We are committed to continuing that work with the first nation communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have one minute.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

At the beginning of COVID back in May, there was a news story about Dynamic Air Shelters. Then Parliament was shut down and we prorogued Parliament. We never really got any clear answers on how that first nations community had come to be on the list for receiving these Dynamic Air Shelters and what the process was in order to facilitate getting those air shelters. I was just wondering if we have any clarity on the Dynamic Air Shelters situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have 30 seconds.

[Christiane Fox]

I'll turn it over to Val very quickly to answer that one.

[Valerie Gideon]

Sure. Early on in the pandemic—early in March—we started working with every remote and isolated community, going down a list of communities to see what their option would be for isolation spaces. In that context, we also felt the need to stockpile some of these temporary structures so that we could deploy them quickly as needed.

We did that with a partnership with Norway House Cree Nation, for example, and we've also stockpiled some in Sioux Lookout. We did a mix of funding communities or funding first nations partners to procure and also did some direct procurement. We procured from a number of companies, not only Dynamic Air Shelters. Of course, that was done through Public Services and Procurement Canada. We have about seven companies...that were procured with PSPC to make sure we are able to deploy some of these structures.

As of mid-October, we had 104 community spaces that had been retooled and 170 temporary mobile structures that were also funded. It was a combination of the community determining the option and our being ready to deploy if they had not had an opportunity to do that.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry. We're way over time on that.

Thank you, Mr. Viersen.

I have Ms. Zann for six minutes, for the Liberal Party.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a question. I believe probably Deputy Minister Quan-Watson might be best to answer this.

As you know, Deputy Minister, 20 years ago the Marshall decision here in Nova Scotia reaffirmed the treaty right of the Mi'kmaq people to fish in pursuit of a moderate livelihood. The dialogue has been part of how we are working towards its implementation, and we need to continue this dialogue, which I believe is now ongoing with the chiefs and the Minister of Fisheries and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations. Our government has made a commitment to redefine the relationship between the Crown and indigenous peoples, and we underscored that in our Speech from the Throne.

How do you feel we can best move forward with this to reaffirm the Supreme Court of Canada decision and try to implement this in the quickest and best way possible for the Mi'kmaq people of Nova Scotia?

[Daniel Quan-Watson]

Thank you very much for the question, and I'll—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Yes, what is your point of order?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Chair, this is a study on COVID. I know the ministers are going to be coming back for estimates, which is a more flexible subject.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I would just ask about the relevance of the treaty to the issue of COVID. Thank you.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We can't interrupt a point of order that's being spoken to.

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

Okay.