Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 4th, 2021

[Merlyn Recinos]

Yes, thank you.

We operate what I call an octopus—I guess it has grown to be an octopus.

At the beginning we operated the online store, through which we wanted to provide more affordable and better food and in a bigger variety to the communities. Slowly, as we progressed with the concept of food insecurity, we realized that it's not as easy as that. If we truly wanted to fight food insecurity, we needed to do more. Today, therefore, we operate the online store, we have a construction company, we have an airline charter company and we have this business development company as well. All of this is to help the communities and the people in the communities, to empower them to do something, as they want to do.

I said that we operate many different things. Right now we're renovating a 4,000-square-foot building in Igloolik that we're going to turn into our head office, where we're going to be hiring people to manage all of our operations, from here in Igloolik.

We're also looking at building three of the self-sustaining stores that I told you about in three different communities in order to do an interchange of country food. We are heavy with fish and seal, for example, but we don't get a lot of muktuk or caribou.

We're breaking down food insecurity as a complex issue and are trying to see how we can tackle each level of it.

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

Earlier, we were talking about traditional foods. We know full well that traditional foods are important to the physical and mental health of members of all communities.

Could you tell us more about the importance of those foods?

[Merlyn Recinos]

Yes. Traditional food is irreplaceable. It's something that connects the individual to the land, and back and forth. Our communities rely heavily on country food—fish, caribou, seal, walrus. As I said, at least 30% of our communities—this is from a study we have done—rely on country food. Now what we need to do is figure out how we can support this.

Wade talked about the wage economy and how, for hunters, it is expensive for machines and for different things. We can support that by subsidizing part of that. We can support them by subsidizing some of the machines and the oil and gas that are being used. In exchange, they come back and sell their food to us, the char and whatever. We process it and are able to sell it locally at a much reduced cost.

Right now, we only have a couple of processing places in Nunavut, but if I want, here in Igloolik, to buy a fillet of Arctic char from the processing plant in Rankin Inlet, I'm paying $60 for it, even though I can go and grab an Arctic char from a hunter here for $20.

How, then, do we gain back by processing locally, creating jobs and creating an economy?

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

I would like to ask Chief Joseph a question.

Do you think access to federal programs could be improved in terms of community food infrastructure?

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

Thank you for that question.

Yes, I think it would be great to improve access, for example, if there were an emergency situation. One of the things that we were considering was an airship, as well as working in conjunction with them. I think other first nations would also jointly assist our first nations. If we had something like that, we would be able to address emergency situations. We would be able to support the emergency measures in that sense, as well.

Transportation is not the only issue here in the north. There's the high cost of food, especially for those individuals who have low incomes or who rely on social services for assistance. They can barely make it through the month. There are so many factors with regard to food security that have already been mentioned in the presentations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We're at time now. Thanks, Chief Joseph, and thank you, Madam Bérubé.

Richard Cannings, welcome to the committee. Please go ahead for six minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today. I'll start with Chief Joseph. In my previous life, I was a biologist. I had the pleasure and privilege to spend some summers doing biological surveys in northern Yukon. It was interesting to hear you talk about farming. I don't think a lot of people in southern Canada appreciate how hot it gets in Dawson in the summer. I'm from the Okanagan Valley and believe me, it was often very hot in Dawson when I was there. With those long days, I know you can produce some wonderful food.

I wanted to talk to you about a couple of the other country food items you mentioned. One was chinook salmon. You were concerned about populations of chinook. That's a broad concern throughout British Columbia and Yukon.

I'm speaking to you from the territory of the Syilx people, the Syilx Okanagan Nation. They have an active chinook salmon rehabilitation program going on. I must say I've had the pleasure of eating chinook out of the Yukon system that was caught by first nations around Mayo.

I just wanted to ask you how much help you get from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with respect to your concerns about the chinook populations, what's causing that and how you can improve it.

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

There are a lot of good questions there.

Through our collaboration process outlined in our treaty agreements, we're able to work collaboratively with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regionally to try to address the decline of the chinook salmon. We mainly work with them in terms of how we manage the harvest, because it's an international species. It migrates from the Yukon down to the Bering Sea through Alaska and back.

There are over 100 communities, mainly along the Yukon River and in Alaska, that are relying on the chinook salmon. We had to volunteer not to harvest for one full life cycle. We just recently extended that for another year until we have a salmon harvest management plan in place for our first nation. We work with the other first nations as well in the Yukon.

From time to time, we meet at the international Yukon River Panel, in Alaska or here in the Yukon, on the management of the chinook salmon. We review all of the indicators that identify the salmon genetics from Alaska, the U.S. side, and the Canadian side and determine the total allowable harvest. Unfortunately, for many years now there's also been border escapement to consider. For many years now, the border escapement hasn't been met and the numbers have just been declining. There are many different factors for the decline, such as warming oceans and warming rivers through the migration, such as the rearing streams and the Yukon main stem.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

The other species you mentioned that has that migratory pattern between Alaska and the Yukon is caribou. I spent a summer in Old Crow with the Vuntut Gwitchin and I know how they're inextricably tied to caribou. We've had a lot of concerns recently with threats of opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and development. I'm wondering how the caribou management is going, from your eyes, and how the federal government might help there.

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

In terms of the Porcupine caribou, which is the international species we're referring to here, we have the Porcupine Caribou Management Board. Eight communities in the north and the federal and territorial governments are part of the board. They meet and review all of the information—the biological indicators, the migration patterns and the population census of the herd.

Our communities work together closely through the board. There's an annual meeting that provides recommendations to all of the parties affiliated. There's not a really strong relationship on the international board, and I think that's where the federal government can come in and assist with ensuring that the international agreement is being pursued and is actively working. The Alaskans have a lack of commitment to provide members to the board. As a result, there are no international board meetings on the Porcupine caribou. That's one of the challenges.

We do have a challenge here with the Porcupine caribou due to climate change. The Porcupine caribou hasn't fully returned into our traditional territory for at least six years now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry to interrupt. We're at time—beyond it, actually.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm going to ask for the indulgence of the committee once again. I think we can get a partial second round of questions, but we would need an extension for that. Are we okay, committee members, to do another set of questions with interventions from each of the parties—that would be four—to conclude this witness testimony? Is anyone opposed to that?

Seeing none, I need a motion to extend past one o'clock. Will someone offer a motion? Eric Melillo.

(Motion agreed to)

We'll go to two five-minute questions with Mr. Vidal and Ms. Zann, and then finish with Mr. Cannings and Madam Bérubé, of course.

Gary Vidal, you have five minutes.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by saying how much I've appreciated the testimony of all of you today. The information provided has been fascinating and valuable.

Solutions that come from the local community level, where it's your lived experience and you're seeing what goes on, are always more valuable than solutions being imposed on somebody from a distance somewhere. I appreciate the testimony you've brought and the comments in response to the questions you've already been asked.

For the Arctic Fresh folks, Mr. Recinos and Mr. Cendou, I so much appreciate your entrepreneurial approach to solving problems that talk about local economy and that talk about opportunity for people in your communities. That's a conversation I've been having for years in northern Saskatchewan, a long way away from where you are.

I could listen to you talk about what you've done for hours. I'm fascinated with what you're doing, and I appreciate it. However, I want to change the focus to hear a different perspective for a second, just for something new.

I looked at the information on your website, your story and your history. You talk about your three pillars, the pillars of health, community and youth. I want to drill a little bit into or ask your opinion maybe on the value of educating your youth relative to the context of healthy eating, the entrepreneurship, the.... It's so important that we educate our youth to make that long-term change in the context of all this. I'd be curious as to your perspective on that.

I'll start with Mr. Recinos first.

Chief Joseph, I want to prepare you that I'm going to come back to you and ask the same question in the context of your lived experience, as well.

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

Sure.

[Merlyn Recinos]

Thank you.

Definitely one of our pillars is youth, and it's really about how we build that capacity.

Not everybody grew up eating vegetables in our communities. Not everybody grew up eating this sort of food, so how do we build capacity locally so we're able to utilize those? Most of the stuff that is highly subsidized right now are things that we're used to eating in our southern communities, but not so much what has been historically eaten in our communities and now.

One of the things that we do is every time.... We do cooking classes at the community hall. We teach how to utilize different things, how to make different recipes. We incorporate traditional hunting food, like char, caribou and things like that, with other things, like vegetables and different things like that. I'll give you a quick example.

One time we had a bunch of broccoli in our community, so we started to teach how to make different types of broccoli salads. Before, in the sell swaps, everybody would sell poutine in the evenings. When people were trying to get a little bit, they were selling poutine. Now they sell broccoli salad with clubhouses. It's something the community really likes. They enjoy the different flavours, the different types of broccoli salads that can be made. You have to have that. You have to focus on that, building that capacity locally.

The youth are our future. We really need to focus on that, as well, but we also do it in a business capacity sense. We're teaching different youth from different communities how to start and run their own business. We partnered up with Makigiaqta. We cover their costs. We help them with logistics. We help them make partnerships with suppliers, and things like that, so that they can start operating their small business in their community.

Once people start to see that somebody else is doing it, they want to do it too, and it creates this ripple effect. Now you're learning how to eat, you're learning how to cook different things, but at the same time, you're also learning different activities that are going to be self-sufficient for you and your community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Chief Joseph, you just have a minute, if you want to reflect on that question.

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

As mentioned, youth are really key and an important part of our community. We invest a lot in our youth. Various youth have different interests, so we try to meet their level of interest. We had many youth who were interested in working on the farm and learning about agriculture through the training program. It's key and important to our community that one day they'll be taking over management of the farm.

We look forward to when that time comes, because we continue to invest in the farm heavily. It's important that we have some level of food security, and it's providing a much stronger and growing economy in our community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much, Chief Joseph.

We now go to a five-minute intervention with Lenore Zann.

Lenore, please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Chair.

To the witnesses, thank you so much. It's very interesting and very exciting work that you're all doing.

In budget 2021, we announced $163.4 million, over three years, to expand nutrition north and engage with indigenous partners to address food insecurity. Obviously, this investment is going to be important.

I have a question for you regarding where the help should go.

Mr. Natan Obed, the president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, noted that there are huge socio-economic disparities in the north—as you know—especially, he said, between the Inuit and the non-Inuit, and he continued:

...yet the nutrition north program is need-blind, so the family that has a median income that is three to four times that of another family is going to the store and getting the same subsidy for the same items.

Would it be desirable for the nutrition north Canada program to provide more targeted supports to families with lower incomes? If so, how do you think this should be done?

Perhaps we could start with Chief Joseph and then go to Mr. Recinos.

[Chief Roberta Joseph]

It would be great to be able to provide funding to the first nation or the band to be able to develop the programs that they see are needed in the community, that can meet the needs of those who need it the most. With Jordan's principle, we provide a food program to our young people, ensuring that everybody has a good lunch three times a week and ensuring that our children have the nutrition that's needed. We have taken advantage of applying through the poverty coalition for foods there as well. That was provided to elders. There was meat and poultry that was provided to all of the elders.

We know who needs it and are looking after those individuals in the community who would benefit the most from this, who have little or no income.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Recinos, I see you nodding your head there.

[Merlyn Recinos]

Yes. Thank you.

I'm in total agreement with Chief Joseph. We need to co-create, and that's key, co-create with our communities to see how and what they see is the most needed. If we look at it and say, “This is what we think you should be doing,” that would feel very unfair for the communities, because the reality is that they're the ones who need to tell us what they need and how they need that support.

As businesses or social enterprises, it's up to us to do our job to help our communities and the people we serve. What I would do is co-create with communities to see how that support can be given to the people who need it the most and need it at the community level. That would be very well done.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

I have another question—I know time is short here—regarding infrastructure. You both mentioned infrastructure, and that equipment is needed to preserve and extend the shelf life of food products in the north. Some people have said that's the biggest gap in the north, that the infrastructure is not there for that.

Can you each explain the impact of infrastructure deficits on food security in northern Canada?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Answer very quickly, please.