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

[Valerie Gideon]

In long-term care facilities in indigenous communities, we immediately saw that environments that truly support the well-being of their residents had been created. We saw in social media that campaigns were being run to connect seniors with families in the communities. We could follow them on Facebook. It was very dynamic and lively. You could see that they didn't have the same concern or insecurity about being isolated and about the support of their community or their families. They did not have the same concern in indigenous settings.

Therefore, we continued to communicate directly with all homes and centres located in indigenous communities to ensure that strategies were in place. The public health funding envelope allows these people to access additional funding. They can apply for funding to meet additional needs, whether it is for staff, training, plexiglass shields, equipment, medical supplies or any other such needs. We contact them regularly to ensure that their needs are taken into account.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

We're down to our final six-minute questioner.

Ms. Blaney, please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you again for being with us this evening.

One of the questions I have is this. You know, a large part of the response for indigenous people living off reserve, or further from their communities, is to rely on urban indigenous organizations to deliver services. Most of the time, of course, those are friendship centres across Canada, but there are some other organizations. There are communities in my riding, and in other areas across the country, where there isn't any kind of infrastructure for that.

What solutions have you created to really focus on serving those indigenous communities that are off reserve, where there isn't really infrastructure in the community to get those culturally appropriate services?

That question is for whoever is the appropriate person to answer it, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Who would like to answer it?

[Christiane Fox]

I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to Mary Kapelus. She has been doing a lot of work in this area.

I think, as the minister noted, you're absolutely correct—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry, Ms. Fox, but you need to bring down your mike a little bit again.

There you go.

[Christiane Fox]

I'm sorry.

As the minister noted in terms of urban and off reserve.... The first thing I would note is that when we did our initial tranche of $15 million, we received a number of applications. That was kind of based on friendship centres and other organizations. As you note, it was people we had worked with who had a presence in the various areas of the community. It didn't meet the need. We had to actually increase the funding and go with a second envelope of $75 million.

The reality is that the needs go much beyond that. Part of our work has to be outreach to those communities that would not be represented by a friendship centre in order to determine the need and be able to find the appropriate way to respond to the current situation in that particular part of the country.

With that, I'll turn it over to Mary.

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus, Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Sector, Department of Indigenous Services]

Thank you, Deputy.

Yes, you are correct. In the first wave, we discovered that there were a number of organizations and communities that didn't have that friendship centre sort of support, but through the different waves, and all the proposals that came in, we discovered that there were other organizations in those areas, in some cases hamlets, municipalities and your not-so-traditional friendship centre organization. We had new partners that we had never funded before, and it was a very exciting time for us to get to meet some of these service delivery agents that we didn't even know existed. There's quite a web of them working under the radar.

The other thing we witnessed was that some of them actually partnered with friendship centres through this. We saw this particularly in Atlantic Canada, where there were cases of smaller communities that would link up with the friendship centres virtually and get advice on how to service their members. They were receiving funds from us but working in partnership with other organizations, and we were definitely encouraging and supporting that dialogue.

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

Thank you. That's extremely helpful.

We had 'Namgis in my riding that had a serious outbreak, and their neighbouring community, Alert Bay, had the same outbreak. They really came together and worked amazingly well. I have nothing but respect for both the mayor and the chief there, but I have heard from other indigenous communities across Canada that are close to municipalities and are trying to coordinate a response to an outbreak, and they're finding it to be a fairly significant challenge.

I'm just wondering if the ministry is looking into funding or something to help develop coordinated emergency response plans in conjunction with provincial or municipal emergency response departments.

[Christiane Fox]

Absolutely. I think there has been some investment in the past around emergency management and around how we can support communities, but beyond that, the department is looking at enhancing those emergency response funding agreements that we have with communities across the country. I think we have to work in partnership with municipal governments, with provincial governments and with territorial governments because they obviously all need to be utilized and deployed when a situation occurs, whether it's COVID, fires, flooding or all of these issues.

I think the answer to the question is, absolutely, we are doing that, and we are investing more into these types of programs and working with indigenous communities to develop them.

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

Okay. Do you have any examples of places where there has been a challenge and you've seen success? I feel like.... I've heard from some communities, and I don't want to name them, but are there any where you're seeing some development that works best? That's what we're hearing. In my riding, as I said, they worked together seamlessly; they really were collaborative, but that is not always the case. Are there actual investments to encourage those two different groups to come together and make plans?

[Christiane Fox]

Yes, absolutely. The annual budget actually went from $64.9 million.... Since budget 2019, there's actually new funding that brings the funding to $211 million. There are investments being made and concrete steps being taken to encourage that.

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

My last question is on rapid testing. I know that some communities are having a hard time working with their provincial counterparts to get the testing they need, and I'm just wondering if there has been any work done on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You need a rapid answer.

[Christiane Fox]

Dr. Wong.

[Dr. Tom Wong]

Yes, there's indeed a lot of work. We're working with indigenous communities, together with the National Microbiology Lab, in order to access more and more of these rapid tests in remote and isolated communities in particular. Earlier, you heard the minister talk about the 77 GeneXpert machines being deployed. In addition to that, over the next couple of months there's new technology, including Abbott's ID NOW, as well as Panbio, and there will be many more being acquired and deployed to more indigenous communities in the north.

At this moment, we are very excited about those opportunities, not just the deployment of those machines but also the test as well as training to actually do the testing, biosafety, quality assurance and quality control.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

As chair, I would really like to thank everyone. We got off to a bit of a rough start because when the previous meeting runs over, it runs into our time. We had technical issues, which we managed to get through. Thank you for your patience and also for the volume and wealth of information that you were able to share with us. We really appreciate that and hope we'll have more opportunities in the future.

Also, thank you to those of you who were not heard from tonight, and to Ruby Sahota for sitting in and hopefully gaining something from our wonderful INAN committee.

Before I sign off, I'd like to ask the clerk what we need in order to complete our business for the next meeting, which is scheduled for next Tuesday. I believe that means supplying witnesses for the study.

Mr. Clerk, do you have any instruction?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Naaman Sugrue]

Yes. Witness lists would be due this Friday. There was a discussion earlier about inviting some specific organizations to appear for the Tuesday meeting outside of those witness lists. That came from Mr. Anandasangaree, who is unfortunately not with us right now. I can confer with you and the analysts to make sure we know exactly what organizations were being referred to. With the agreement of the committee here and now, we can make that meeting happen so that we're not limited by our witness list deadline.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Okay. We will circulate amongst everyone the issues that you brought forward and the potential for other witnesses so that we can safely and comfortably get our next meeting under way, which will be next Tuesday at 11 a.m. Do I have the correct information?

[The Clerk]

Yes, that's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

With that, I will once again thank everyone for being with us.

This meeting is hereby adjourned.