Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 4th, 2021

[Duane Wilson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to comment briefly on this. It's really twofold. Mr. Thorhaug mentioned some of the obstacles to hunting today and the need to have an income to, in essence, subsidize hunting. One of the obstacles to hunting that many of us are hearing about is the high cost of supplies. I think that comes back to the question of income to be able to equip oneself to pursue hunting.

The other thing worth mentioning—and this is why country food is only a part of the solution—is that for millennia, the people were part of nature and these things were always in balance. Now, whether it's through modern medicine or through health and other social services, the life expectancy is improving. That's a good thing, but it might be throwing the balance of nature off. Hunters are now reporting having to go further and further. Climate change is impacting where game are. All of these things are very intertwined. It's like a spider's web. When you pull on one side, other strands tighten or loosen accordingly.

Thank you for the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You're just about out of time, Arnold.

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

I'll cede my time. Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Jones, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was really glad to hear these witnesses today. I know that you have first-hand experience in providing services around food security in the north.

I want to say to Mr. Thorhaug, I've been in your facility in Iqaluit and I've been very impressed with the work that you've been doing there.

Mr. Wilson, I'm a C3 alumnus too. I had the pleasure of travelling with MP Adam van Koeverden and saw him in that Inuit canoe. He was pretty awesome, let me tell you.

I know that we also have another guest coming up from Arctic Fresh. I've toured their facilities as well. I want to acknowledge the good work that's being done.

I also want to say that over the past year we've talked a little bit about the CERB program. There have been over 10,000 Nunavummiut who have received the CERB program. That's more than one in four of every resident. When you look at these programs that we're translating into benefits on the ground over the last year, everything from caregiver benefits to the emergency response benefit in particular, there has been over $100 million in new money that has been generated in that economy. That's why we've been able to see things like a little less pressure on the food banks and other services.

However, having said that, we know that the demand is still there. This year, in the budget we added $163 million in additional funding for food security. That's in addition to what is currently being paid out now under the harvester support program, which, in its first years, has already been shown to be successful, and there are many opportunities to build on that program to meet the need for food security of traditional foods. Also, it's in addition to what we currently pay out to supplement nutritious foods like those that come through the North West Company and through other companies across that region.

I hear several things from people on the ground on a regular basis. One is that they want to have the ability for direct ordering. What do you think is the role that government can play in that and how do you see that translating on the ground?

We also get requests for subsidized shipping for online orders. Is there a role for the Government of Canada, and how do you see that we could play a role in seeing some of these things materialize?

Of course, the other one is with regard to an income supplement. As I said, this past year, over $100 million in additional money went into the local economy, into families' pockets, into homes. We also added more money into food banks, food services, seniors networks. In addition to that, we paid out money directly to Inuit-based governments, which they could use for both food security vouchers and heat security vouchers for residents.

All of these things we've seen are making a difference. How do we improve on it and how do we ensure that people have more options for food security than what they have today?

I'm going to listen to what the panellists have to say. You can speak from your perspective of the services you currently deliver, or maybe you have thoughts that are outside of what what you're currently doing that we'd be interested in hearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

And do it in one minute....

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

We can start with you, Mr. Thorhaug.

[Wade Thorhaug]

Thank you.

I do remember your visit at the centre back when in-person visits weren't frowned upon.

I won't speak to the first two questions because there are a lot of logistics experts on the call who could probably answer that. However, on the third one, the benefits that have been flowing into the territory this year have been amazing because we've had these problems for years and we've actually been able to see an improvement in a lot of people's livelihoods thanks to this.

That being said, because in the years to come we won't be dealing with a pandemic, we're worried that we'll have the same problems of food insecurity but we won't have the same level of financial supports that we did in this year. In a way, while the country was essentially in crisis, a lot of measures, the supports, actually created some benefit for the territory.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you. I'm sorry. We're out of time at this point.

We go to Madam Bérubé for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the subject of food insecurity, we were just talking about the environment and climate change, which is taking place despite everything.

Mr. Lelievre, can you tell us about the possibility of increased risk of food insecurity and environmental contamination because of climate change and everything else that is happening?

[Daniel Lelievre]

Let me tell you about what I see personally. When I started working in the north 20 years ago, the ice was forming at the end of September. You could start ice fishing the first week of October. Today, sometimes you can't start ice fishing until the end of December. In just 20 years, we have lost two to three months of ice fishing. So I can imagine that, if we don't do anything, if we don't do what we have to do, there may no longer be ice in Nunavik in 15 or 20 years.

The infrastructure is not keeping up with the demographics, as I said. In the past, we could send strawberries to the north with no problem. Today, the strawberries have to be wrapped in styrofoam to protect them, which is an additional cost. The same is true for fresh meat, which is frozen before shipping. In the past, the risk of the ice breaking up lasted for one or two months. Today, it's five or six months. The meat also has to be placed in styrofoam to protect it. For this reason, consumer prices are increasing dramatically.

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

What do you think the government could do to allow indigenous communities and northerners to hunt, fish and ensure their food security more?

[Daniel Lelievre]

As many people have mentioned, the cost of basic hunting equipment, such as snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and canoes, is very high in the north.

A low-income family cannot afford a canoe, an outboard motor and a snowmobile all at once. This greatly limits hunting and fishing, which allows people to be self-sufficient in food.

An additional subsidy program for hunting and fishing could be helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you for that.

I'm not sure, for the NDP intervention, whether it's Ms. Ashton or Mr. Cannings.

Niki, are you ready to go?

You have two and a half minutes. Please go ahead.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Yes. Thank you very much. I think in the second hour my colleague Richard Cannings will take over.

There's a lot of focus on poverty reduction, which is absolutely critical. I also very much appreciate the federal government initiatives that many are pointing to, which were very impactful during this crisis. I want to acknowledge the work of the federal government, and the way they responded to many of our calls in the NDP as well, to get at poverty reduction across the country, but specifically, obviously, in the north.

I think it's really critical that we acknowledge that many across the north are in a constant state of crisis when it comes to poverty and food insecurity. COVID exacerbated it, but this is ongoing. We need, then, to see measures, including direct financial supports and the creative measures that have been developed, such as the harvesters food program. From it, for example, here in Manitoba many received fish through the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. This was brought together by northern fishers. This was a really critical program, and of course there are other programs to point to as well.

In terms of poverty reduction, we know that co-op models and community food centres are very important models to get at both meeting the needs and bringing back revenue into communities, job creation, etc.

I'm wondering whether, perhaps from the co-op, you could speak to how important the co-op model is in terms of poverty reduction.

Mr. Wilson...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You have one minute. Go ahead.

[Duane Wilson]

Thank you for the question.

Obviously, I've drunk, swished and swallowed the kool-aid about the co-op model, because I believe firmly that small isolated communities, which many would consider a captive market, are the types of communities that, if they're best served by a monopoly, are at risk of that monopoly's power being abused.

To me, it's only natural that you get the best of both worlds when the owners and the consumers—the users of the business—are the same people. That's how these things can operate in harmony.

Anything that represents allowing for direct orders or other distractions takes away from that critical mass. It represents economic leakage and is ultimately bad for the community.

Through the co-op model, which is autonomous local ownership and member democratic-control based on its seven principles, you are now returning control—influence on pricing strategies, what to do with surpluses and investments in local infrastructure—back to the community level and not to an office in Winnipeg like ours.

I think that's very important. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

That brings our committee to a suspension for the replacement of the panel.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for excellent testimony. We've spent a very productive and informative hour or more.

Now we need to set up for our next group, so this meeting is temporarily suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I call the meeting back to order.

Welcome to our witnesses who are now all wired up technically and ready to go. It sounds good.

From Arctic Fresh Inc., we have Silvano Cendou, vice-president, operations; and the vice-president of business development, Merlyn Recinos.

Also with us is the chief of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation, Roberta Joseph.

Arctic Fresh, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Silvano Cendou, Vice-President, Operations, Arctic Fresh Inc.]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

Do we each have six minutes or is it six minutes in total?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Normally it's the one. You're both representing the same group.

[Silvano Cendou]

I'll make mine very quick, then.

I've listened to the witnesses in the prior session and it sounded quite good. They're doing a lot of things, but it sounds like they're relying on the government quite a bit. They have all kinds of issues that are happening and not a lot of solutions.

I would like to pass on the rest of my time to Mr. Recinos, who will talk about Arctic Fresh and what we're proposing.

Thank you very much.

[Merlyn Recinos, Vice-President, Business Development, Arctic Fresh Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you, everybody, for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss this. To us, it's very important and it's what drives us. Food insecurity is our mandate.

I'll tell you a bit about Arctic Fresh and how we started. We started because, when my wife was growing up, she went through a very food insecure time, all of her childhood. She told me that, when she used to have tea and bannock to eat once a day, most of the time they had to use the same bag of tea for multiple cups. This went on through most of her childhood when she was growing up. Now she's a teacher and she started to see this again in schools with all the kids.

One night we were here and thought, how can we change this? How can we do this? That's how Arctic Fresh started.

Arctic Fresh is a social enterprise. Our mandate is to fight food insecurity and to build Inuit capacity to empower individuals and communities.

We first started with an online store. The online store was to provide personal orders directly to the customers. This would allow us to give them an opportunity to be able to order directly but also at reduced price, not having the cost of a heavy overhead.

We did really well when we started. The communities responded very well. As we progressed, we realized that we needed to really dive deep into food insecurity and what food insecurity is, especially in the north.

What we quickly realized was that the same shirt does not fit everybody. There are different levels of food insecurity. What the government and everybody was doing was really not fighting food insecurity but making things more available to the people who already were able to be food secure.

What we did was level down and really dive more into the food insecurity. We quickly realized that we do not have an economy in our communities. Every time a dollar gets spent in our communities, 93¢ of that dollar leaves the community on the first transaction. That is huge.

We started to look at it and we asked, “How can we create an economy?” What we need is to create an economy to be able to create those jobs. If you create those jobs, you are creating wealth within the community. If you rotate that dollar as many times as you can before it leaves the community, you're actually creating wealth within the community.

We looked at micro-businesses. I was listening earlier about how there is not a big market for an operation. Yes, that's correct if you're looking at the operation as a normal size. We have to be innovative. Inuit are the most innovative people ever. That's what kept them alive for thousands of years. They thrived because they were innovative. They invented sunglasses. They invented the kayak. They invented so many things because they needed them.

By creating micro-businesses, you are able to rotate that dollar many times, which then in turn creates wealth for all those people to have those things.

In regard to our operations, we have the online store, but we're also looking at creating a self-sustaining store. We believe there is a huge inequality of wealth in the communities, and most of the previous speakers have talked about this.

How can we create it? We're looking at a harvesting support program. We have done mainly pilot projects where we pay hunters to go hunting, they return with the food and, in return, we take that food and sell it locally at a much reduced cost.

Most of our community relies on country food for over 30% of their food. Some rely on it very heavily, for over 60% of their food consumption. We've developed a study and a business plan to create a self-sustaining store. This self-sustaining store will be able to have a greenhouse that can produce the product, but it also has a meat shop. It's all modular, so it can be made into different things. Whatever the community needs, that's how it can be set up.

This modular house would enable hunters to hunt seal, fish and caribou, come back and process that. Now we will exchange with other communities. Naujaat is very heavy with caribou, but they don't have some of the other things. Now we can do an interchange of processed country food that would allow us to create a market within our communities.

We are also working—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

You're almost out of time, Mr. Recinos. Can you finish, please?

[Merlyn Recinos]

Yes.

We have looked at different things and we're working with the Canadian Space Agency as well as NASA to create systems for how we can give food autonomy back to Inuit communities.